Biden proposes huge expansion of weight loss drug access

by Danny KEMP

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden proposed Tuesday to give millions more Americans access to weight loss drugs -- but Donald Trump's incoming health chief looked set to shoot down the idea.

Under the massive U.S. public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid, drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are, for the most part, only available for overweight people with diabetes or heart disease.

But the White House said Biden wanted to make the game-changing medications widely available as a treatment for obesity itself -- expanding coverage to nearly 7.5 million older and lower-income Americans.

"For too many Americans, these critical treatments are too expensive and therefore out of reach," a White House official said, noting that 42 percent of Americans are obese.

The Department of Health and Human Services said separately in a statement that the "transformative medications" would improve the "health and quality of life for millions of people who have obesity."

The move would benefit 3.4 million Americans with Medicare, which gives health insurance to people mainly aged over 65. It would also help four million people eligible for assistance with Medicaid, which targets lower income residents, officials said.

But the last-gasp plan appears unlikely to survive given that Trump's incoming health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has previously spoken out against the use of anti-obesity drugs.

In October Kennedy opposed a separate bill in Congress that would have expanded access to the medications, saying the money needed to do that would be better spent on improving nutrition.

"If we spent about one fifth of that giving good food, three meals a day to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight," Kennedy said on Fox News.

- 'So stupid' -

He also accused the Danish makers of Ozempic and Wegovy, Novo Nordisk, of "counting on selling it to Americans, because we're so stupid and addicted to drugs."

Kennedy has attracted major controversy for his anti-vaccine activism and embrace of conspiracy theories -- but some of his proposals for improving American's diets have won praise from health campaigners and lawmakers.

Any plan to increase US public health insurance spending would also likely run foul of Trump's bid to slash government budgets and waste.

Trump said last week as he appointed celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz to head Medicare and Medicaid that Oz would "cut waste and fraud" in what he called "our Country's most expensive Government Agency."

The Republican has also named tech tycoon Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head a so called "government efficiency" commission to cut costs across government.

Biden has taken a different tack during his sole term in office.

The Democrat has led a major drive to lower the exorbitant cost of US prescription medicines, and his success in forcing pharmaceutical giants to reduce the prices of some became a key plank of his reelection campaign before he dropped out in July.

In July, Biden called on Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to lower prices for diabetes and weight loss drugs, saying firms must stop "ripping off the American people."

© Agence France-Presse