medicare

The forever problem with making GLP-1s cheaper

Medicare enrollees will be able to get weight loss drugs for the first time next month, through a demonstration program that circumvents federal law. Still, these temporary measures may be tough to actually end, my colleague John reports.

Medicare had wanted private Medicare insurers to cover the popular drugs through a three-year program, but insurers balked. Now, transitional coverage by the federal government, funded by taxpayers, will be available through the end of the year.

But it may not be so easy to end a program that gives obesity drugs to older adults for $50 a month, especially since users who stop taking GLP-1s tend to regain lost pounds. Meanwhile, insurers don’t have an incentive to voluntarily pay for these drugs if Medicare ends its program.

More than 12 million older adults are estimated to qualify for weight loss drugs, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), though it’s not clear how many will decide to get the drugs via the new program.

Read more from John on why this temporary program may have challenges — and what other solutions could lower the costs of GLP-1 drugs.

vaccines

Kennedy’s switchback

Earlier this month we told you that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s public messaging this year has largely revolved around nutrition, food safety and drug pricing, in lockstep with the White House’s insistence that it was “done” with vaccines (and despite quiet signs that the Trump administration wasn’t done changing vaccine policy).

That change in public tone seems to be reverting back once more in recent weeks, including on Monday when Kennedy announced he had written to a peer-reviewed journal, Toxicology Reports, demanding to know why it had withdrawn an article by Neil Z. Miller, a vaccine critic, linking vaccines to sudden infant death.

According to a notice by the journal’s publisher Elsevier, there were “methodological flaws” in the article. In his letter, Kennedy asked for a full accounting of the journal’s concerns, writing that the journal must provide “full transparency” to restore America’s trust in public health.

The letter comes days after Kennedy asked a federal judge to expedite his appeal in a case that’s stalled his vaccine policy changes. That judge ruled earlier this year that a handpicked panel of vaccine advisers were improperly appointed by Kennedy.

In his motion, Kennedy said that the country needs a functioning panel so “the vaccine recommendation process can continue, and families, physicians, and public health programs have the guidance they need.”

Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer for the plaintiff in the suit, the American Academy of Pediatrics, wrote in an email blast Friday night that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices itself isn’t barred from meeting, just its previous members.

“At any time, Secretary Kennedy has the authority to appoint credible, legitimate members to the ACIP,” he wrote.