Lawmakers to vote on if Medicare could cover obesity drugs

The US House Ways and Means Committee has proposed a strategy for Medicare to cover GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Novo Nordisk's (NVO) Wegovy and Eli Lily's (LLY) Zepbound.

Yahoo Finance Health Reporter Anjalee Khemlani breaks down the details of the proposed bill ahead of Thursday's vote to amend part of the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

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Video transcript

We saw this uh new polls today for seniors over 65 I guess, get their weight loss drugs uh paid for by Medicare.

We can tell us about that one.

Yeah, that's a new bill.

Well, so this is a bill that's been languishing literally in Congress for over a decade.

Eli Lilly and Novo nodes have been lobbying for some passage of this bill for some time.

So finally, the House Ways and Means Committee came out with a proposal that is far more limited in the original proposal.

And in this proposal, what they say is that seniors who have been on the drugs, these obesity drugs specifically for at least one year before getting on to Medicare can get continued coverage.

And this does not include those who are overweight with one related disease.

That was part of the previous version of the bill.

There is a vote slated for tomorrow, which is the first time this bill could get as to that milestone and, and that far um and we've covered here uh not at Yahoo Finance, how these two companies have been really hoping for that uh vote to go through.

So we'll see if it does pan out, that is when the congressional budget office will also get some kind of estimate on what Medicare's, uh, price tag will be if it goes through.

All right.

Yeah, that would be pretty terrible if you're someone who's on one of these drugs and coverage goes away when you turn 65.