For most of my adult life, I’ve felt helpless about being overweight. When I met with a doctor a few years ago to discuss my high cholesterol, he held up a hunk of faux flesh meant to model a pound of excess fat and encouraged me to lose 20 of said gelatinous blobs. Perhaps, he suggested, I should eat less red meat and start exercising. I still remember his perplexed stare after I told him I had an established gym routine and had been a vegetarian for the better part of a decade.
Starting an obesity drug was supposed to be triumphant. The days of being winded after walking up the stairs to my apartment, and buying T-shirts marketed for guys with big bellies, would finally be over. Or so I thought. My health insurance didn’t cover Wegovy or Zepbound, the two GLP-1 drugs approved for weight loss. (Both medications are also sold for diabetes, under the brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro, respectively.) Despite my pleading, the insurance company wouldn’t budge.
For all the hype over GLP-1s, Americans have struggled to access these weekly injections. Seniors can’t get these drugs because Medicare is barred by law from covering them for obesity.
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