Insurance companies consider weight problems to be behavioral, not medical. This minor reconceptualization saves insurance companies from paying for any treatment associated with weight management. As a matter of fact, overweight is such a prevalent issue that insurance companies might go broke if obesity were treated as a medical problem.
Diabetes drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have been proven effective for weight loss. Insurance companies, however, are holding the line, refusing to cover the treatment of overweight and obesity, even though most of the leading authorities agree that “thinner is better” when it comes to cardiovascular health and even cancer prevention.
The out-of-pocket cost of these drugs is prohibitive. When my doctor prescribed Wegovy for me, the pharmacy quoted a price of just over $1000 per month. Very few household budgets would be able to absorb Wegovy. Moreover, there is a major drawback: People are almost certain to regain their weight after going off these new weight loss drugs.
We are within weeks of finishing our book Stop Losing and Win. In this book, we teach readers how to maintain their weight. Weight management has never been more salient. Besides the millions of people who want strategies to maintain a healthy weight over time, there is a whole new market of people who lost weight by using a diabetes drug and need to learn how to maintain it after the very expensive drug is withdrawn. What would have been timely and relevant before has become essential reading. Now, how do we make our book widely available to everyone who will need it?
Stop Losing and Win 