Reply to When are the compounded weight loss drugs going away?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Elon just posted a pic of himself on X and attributed his slim physique to Mounjaro. He’s said things recently about how Americans should have better access to weight loss drugs. We’ll see. [/quote]

Interesting to see how that happens when an enormous number of Americans are covered under the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid, which don’t currently cover weight loss drugs. And FEHB, which is required to cover at least one GLP-1, but under increasingly less generous terms that Feds can’t afford.  And the government also subsidizes many ACA plans, and would bear at least some of the cost of increased premiums to add these drugs. I’m  sure how you square cutting $2T from the federal budget while simultaneously adding such an enormously expensive benefit.

Have you seen the number? It would cost approx $411B dollars to prescribe GLP-1s to the approx 50% of Americans who could benefit (diabetic, obese, overweight with co-morbidities, now includes sleep apnea and early disease, soon to a NASH and addiction). https://cboh.kenaninstitute.unc.edu/publication/glp-1-pricing-conundrums-continue/

In 2022, the entire federal civilian payroll was $271B (the most recent number from a reliable source I could find quickly).  And in most agencies, numbers of employees has remained flat since then.  I’m SSA which is one of the largest agencies and we have fewer employees per claimant than at any point in the last 40 years. Meanwhile, our cases keep getting more complex. The backlogs are crazy and people are being detailed all over the place to put out the biggest fires in a robbing Peter to pay Paul scheme. There is no fat to trim.  And we are not the only agency stretched to the breaking point.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20year%202022%2C%20the,the%20Department%20of%20Homeland%20Security.

https://www.ssa.gov/finance/2024/The%20Social%20Security%20Administration%E2%80%99s%20Major%20Management%20and%20Performance%20Challenges%20During%20Fiscal%20Year%202024.pdf

My point is that if DOGE fired every single federal civilian employees, including those processing SSA claims and make sure checks go out, VA staff, TSA, air traffic control, customs and border control, the IC, civilian DOD, etc— the saving would not pay for GLP-1s for everyone who needs them.

You can’t get the budget down and add over $400B to entitlements. There literally aren’t enough civilian feds for Mump and DOGE to fire to offset the cost.

And NO, Trump cannot EO his way out of Patent law. Actual laws in the CFR protect these patents. A EO cannot over ride a statute. Congress, acting together, could pass a law capping prices, like they did for insulin. But free market capitalist Rs were strongly against that part of the IRA.  And the FDA/ MUMP cannot just wave wand and make exceptions to a lawfully issued patent. Novo Nordisk goes to Court, and the patent is  enforced.

Now, many of us think it’s ridiculous that Americans pay multiples of what other countries do for meds under patent. But, most of us are Dems, and they have no power for the next 2 years. And even small steps by Dems to bring down some patented drug proaces— letting Medicare negotiate for lower prices on a short list of drugs and capping insulin prices have been met with strong opposition by Rs who want say the free market should determine prices. Well, in the US, the free market believes these drugs are work about $15k a year, per person.

So, which is it Rs? Should drugs be subject to free market capitalism?  Or do you want price controls for this one drug because you want to be skinny— which drugs that would cure cancer or slow Alzheimer’s remain out of reach for many Americans? Or do you want to push the deficit up 1/2 a Trillion dollars a year to cover them, while simultaneously promising to lower the deficit by $2T? And if you do add the 400+B to entitlements, where are you cutting to offset this— let alone cutting $2T? You can’t have it all. 
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