Members of the House Ways and Means Committee appear to want taxpayer money to be spent on Medicare recipients’ prescription weight loss drugs.
Medications like Ozempic and Wegovy have grown in popularity after showing their effectiveness in reducing weight in obese individuals. While obesity is certainly nothing new, the condition has grown in prevalence over the past few years, especially in Texas, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Clinically defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher, obesity heightens the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, cancer, and more.
At present, federal law bars Medicare payments for weight loss drugs.
Here is some of what Berkeley Lovelace Jr. reported on the development for NBC News:
On Thursday, a House committee took some of the first steps needed to change that law, which would allow Medicare to cover weight loss drugs for the first time. The Ways and Means Committee voted a piece of legislation called The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023 out of the committee and into the full House.
The vote marked a pivotal moment for the bill, which has languished for over a decade in Congress. It’s been reintroduced several times, but has never come up for a committee vote as it did Thursday.
The legislation will now make its way to the full House, though it remains unclear whether it can garner enough votes for passage.
Even if it clears the House, it would still need to pass the Senate and garner the president’s endorsement to become law. Time is of the essence: The current session of Congress will end on Jan. 3, 2025. Any bills not signed into law by that time will need to be reintroduced when the next Congress convenes, essentially starting the process over.
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