Medicare to Pay for GLP-1 Coverage After Insurer Pushback

The federal government scrapped a plan to have health insurance companies fund coverage of obesity drugs for seniors, opting instead to pay for the medicine with taxpayer dollars through the end of next year.

The Trump administration’s initial plan would have made insurers responsible for covering wildly popular weight-loss medications in Medicare plans starting in January. That could have cost those companies billions of dollars in its first year, a recent study suggested. They likely would have had to raise premiums for Medicare prescription drug plans to cover the expense.