The New Weight Loss Drugs May be the Pin that Bursts the American Healthcare Bubble

As of 2022, the direct medical cost of diabetes in the United States is $307 billion dollars. Patients with a diagnosis of diabetes have an average annual medical expense of $19,736. This is 2.6 times higher than the cost of healthcare for caring for people without diabetes.

Healthcare spending in the US is nearly 20% of gross domestic product. That means that one dollar out of every 5 spent on anything in our country is spent on healthcare. In other developed countries, it is one dollar out of every 10, and in Singapore, it is one dollar out of every 20. Most Americans who are not in the Medicare or Medicaid systems get their health insurance from their employer. Very high and rising costs for medical care put our industries at a severe competitive disadvantage vs employers that do not bear that cost burden in other countries. Rising costs for health care increase your insurance premiums and make your pay raises smaller. The patients who get coverage through Medicare or Medicaid cause your taxes to go up.  Rising health care costs have an impact on everyone. Every American has a stake in rising health care costs and it is about to get a lot worse.

As of February 2024, the FDA has approved the following GLP-1 drugs for weight loss: Liraglutide (Saxenda), Semaglutide (Wegovy), and Tirzepatide (Zepbound). Without insurance or discounts, a six-week supply of Saxenda pens costs between $1,590 and $1,660 depending on where you shop. The price of Wegovy (semaglutide) without insurance or manufacturer discounts is in the same ballpark at $1,349.02 for a 28-day supply or $16,188.24 per year. My source said, “with insurance, you might pay as little as $25 a month”, but I will tell you that is very deceptive. The drug company is reeling you in, making you think you are getting a good deal, but your employer is getting ripped off and that ultimately has an impact on you. I have tried to find out what self-insured employers pay but that information is just not available. I hear it is about $800 a month.

Ninety percent of all diabetics have type 2 diabetes. Most of them are overweight. If there is widespread coverage of these GLP1 drugs for weight loss, our cost of caring for the millions of patients with type 2 diabetes will nearly double to $35,924 dollars a year per each patient. This cost is unsustainable. It is just too much money. It cannot work. Our healthcare costs are so high now that they are the greatest drivers of American economic insecurity. This may well be the healthcare cost explosion that bursts the healthcare bubble. What makes this issue such a tragedy, is these drugs for weight loss and diabetes are not even the best answer to the problem.

I was always fat, and I hated being fat. I knew that it interfered with social relationships, athletic performance, and health. I think I went to medical school in part to learn how to deal with obesity myself and to help others with that problem. I had large cell lymphoma in 1990 which may have been related to my obesity. I am still struggling with the aftereffects of the treatment for that cancer. I could not be more interested in the topic of obesity. I have lost 70 pounds and maintained it for two decades. I have provided simple education and inexpensive weight-centric medical management to patients with type 2 diabetes that is highly effective. Four of my patients lost over 100 pounds and two thirds of them had sustained weight loss at two years with an average reduction of 15 pounds.

The great leaps forward in disease treatment come from understanding the root cause of the ailment. We have made great progress in understanding the root cause of the twin epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Hawaiian Punch hit the grocery store shelves in 1955. Only 5% of the product is fruit juice and almost all the calories come come from high fructose corn syrup. Breakfast cereals began as a healthy idea. Sugar frosted cornflakes came out and they started targeting kids with TV commercials at about the same time. Sugar sweetened drinks became much more popular in the 1970s. The combination of highly processed sugar laden foods and drinks becoming more popular and the beginnings of the obesity epidemic overlap. Unscrupulous food companies target your kids with highly effective commercials to make them want addictive foods that make them fat and sick. That becomes the family food culture and that is why we have so many obese, sick people.

The answer is completely obvious. Your family can protect itself. My family had a food culture that almost killed me with cancer. We have changed that. My children have changed that. My two sons and their 7 children are all fit and slender. That is the ultimate answer. Throw out the sugar and processed carbs and eat whole, real food. My kids and their kids are all much less likely to develop lymphoma and other diseases related to obesity than I was. The best answer to the disease is to attack the root cause of the disease. We should no more allow our children to be targeted by addictive food commercials than we allow them to be targeted by cigarette advertising.

That leads to another discussion. This is also a political problem. Policy at the highest levels makes all the difference. We don’t have a government of, for, and by the people. It is obvious that the people are being harmed by predatory food corporations that make them fat and sick. Then they are rescued by predatory drug companies that charge $1300 a month to help you lose the weight that the predatory food companies put on you. No other country eats like this, and no other country spends 20% of gross domestic product on healthcare.

In Germany, the direct costs for diabetes care per person are $3636 per year as of 2016. Our direct medical costs for diabetes between 2017 and 2022 only went up by 7% so the Germans pay far less for diabetes care. The same Wegovy drug that costs $1349 in the United States costs $328 in Germany. These costs are even lower in other countries. “Novo Nordisk charges Americans with Type 2 diabetes $969 per month for Ozempic, compared to just $155 in Canada, $122 in Italy, $71 in France and $59 in Germany…..If half of American adults with obesity took Wegovy and the other new weight loss drugs, it could cost the health care system $411 billion per year — more than total spending for all retail prescription drugs in 2022, the report found.” You are being ripped off!

The company lists Wegovy for $1,349 per month in the U.S. compared to $186 in Denmark, $137 in Germany and $92 in the U.K.That is because they use the huge leverage of the German government to negotiate drug prices. They do have a government that acts on behalf of the people. Government policy makes a huge difference. Our government does not act on behalf of the people. It acts on behalf of corporate interests, and it is compromising the fiscal health of the United States and the American people. Negotiating drug prices is an obvious first step. Find out if your senator or congressman voted to negotiate drug prices, and if he did not, vote for the other guy. Politics is all about power and money. Don’t be distracted by other issues and play into their hands.

There is another obvious fact that follows. These companies will continue to get as much money out of you as they can. They will target your kids and make them fat and sick. These companies have proven that competition and self-regulation will never work in the food, drug and health industries. These industries have proven that laws and regulation are the only way to protect your family. It is working in Europe. If you have a better answer, I am all ears. If not, we must protect our families. In the meantime, save your own family and eat real, whole food.