When will ozempic be available to the rest of us?
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Anonymous
GMO produce is not the source of the obesity epidemic. And even if it was, demanding subsidies for specific food is no different than the premise of those thread. |
Anonymous
| *this thread |
Anonymous
I always thought if you could bottle up coffee and a cigarette no one would be fat. |
Anonymous
You keep repeating that nonsense but it doesn’t make any logical sense. As long as these drugs are treating medical conditions (which they are) they will be covered by insurance. And you can go suck it. |
Anonymous
I know it’s not but that’s just one example of how food is different than it was 30 years ago. You used a tomato to shame me so I brought up GMO. And the science is very much out on whether GMO wheat, for example, is much worse for you than non GMO wheat. People with gluten intolerances go to Europe and eat all the pasta and bread they want. Wheat is non-GMO there. I suggest you study where our food is coming from before making stupid statements. |
Anonymous
Insurance will never cover what OP is asking for. Ever. Go back and read what was written. Insurance will also not cover or will stop covering for garden variety obesity. At least until there is generic competition. And it shouldn’t. That’s why we have so many of these threads. |
Anonymous
This is non responsive and has nothing to do with the thread subject. I know all about our food system. I also know people will invent all kinds of excuses for obesity in an unending attempt to skirt acknowledging the reality of how we all ended up here. HINT: it might have something to do with eating garbage, which is not excusable if you don’t live in a food desert and do have the income to access quality food. |
Anonymous
You made a claim that food hasn’t changed. It has. That’s all. |
Anonymous
Interesting. If we are looking at this from a purely economic angle, then it follows that you should be in favor of coverage. In the aggregate, obesity costs the American healthcare industry 260 billion dollars. Interventions through medication prior to the onset of the obesity-related conditions should reduce that overall cost, particularly if demand increases and costs come down, as they should be expected to. https://www.jmcp.org/doi/full/10.18553/jmcp.2021.20410 |
Anonymous
If you’re talking about the current working definition of GMO, genetically engineered tomatoes were first sold in 1994, though it isn’t correct to say that tomatoes haven’t changed since then. Regardless of whether tomatoes have changed or not, the argument that Americans should just stop buying heavily processed foods and buy more fruits and vegetables in order to address obesity is akin to telling people to just walk everywhere to stay in shape. It’s a facile argument and unrealistic in our society. There are food deserts and affordability to consider, plus cultural differences and genetics. But it is primarily meant as an insult in any case. Many people can and have changed their eating habits for the better permanently, but on a societal scale the US has a significant and costly obesity problem. It won’t be fixed by telling people to buy tomatoes. If lots of people lose weight and improve their health outcomes via meds, that is fantastic for all of us. And since these meds reduce cravings and mindless snacking, they make it easier to “just eat a tomato.” Win win. |
Anonymous
NP here. First, this must be a new economic principle - demand increases and costs go *down.* Fascinating. Regardless, you're probably right that drug intervention could bring the costs of obesity down, and it would be a net gain for the system. But insurance companies don't deal in the overall, aggregate health costs - they deal with the health costs of their own insureds. And people change health insurance often - they change jobs, get a different plan in the Exchange, etc. Moreover, virtually everyone is off private coverage, and on Medicare, when they turn 65. So if an insurance company pays for a weight loss drug simply so people can lose weight - which is what many are suggesting here - it may pay dividends down the road. But it won't pay dividends to that insurer if the insured has changed plans. And companies know they won't get any returns if formerly obese people's health improves when they are elderly. Insurance companies pay actuaries a lot of money, and I'm pretty sure if they could establish that they'd save on claims if they covered all weight loss drugs for everyone, they'd do it. Or are you suggesting that they know they could save money but are choosing not to? I am astonished, and disheartened, that this has to be explained. |
Anonymous
Effectively zero people that participate in this forum live in a food desert. Exactly zero of the people asking when these branded drugs will be available for the purpose OP is asking live in a food desert. It’s insulting to appropriate that harsh reality. People asking for these novel drugs for garden variety obesity just don’t want to change and do the work. Expecting 40% of the US population to solve a mostly self inflected problem through novel pharmaceutical intervention is incredibly dumb. |
Anonymous
Guess what wildly more dumb. Telling people that they are dumb and that should just use their will power to lose the weight. That’s the dumbest. |
Anonymous
You don’t know that. Among the Pure Barre or Orangetheory crowd, sure. But this is a regional board and DC has food deserts FFS. And it’s really insulting to imply that people who live in a food desert (or who have a limited income and may as well live in food desert because they can’t afford Whole Foods) within the DMV don’t care enough about their health to spend 20 minutes reading this forum. Check your privilege please. |
Anonymous
I am not sure what you think you explained. Someone made the argument that insurance should not cover weight loss medication because the costs of that medication eventually "trickle down" to the person paying the insurance premiums. That is true in an abstract long term sense. It is ALSO true that the cost of claims made as a result of obesity eventually trickle down to the individual paying the insurance premiums. Medication to treat obesity reduces claims from resulting conditions so is at best a wash. So no need for anyone paying insurance premiums to worry about cost to them. |