The Ozempic boom is an opportunity for health insurers
The Ozempic boom is an opportunity for health insurers
You’d think a new class of expensive weight-loss drugs taken by millions of Americans would pose a problem for health insurers. After all, they are the ones who end up paying the bill. But it’s more complicated than that: some insurance giants could actually benefit from the Ozempic craze.
The industry denounces the cost of GLP-1 drugs, used against both diabetes and obesity. But federally backed Medicare and Medicaid still don’t cover obesity drugs, and much of the commercial market is self-insured. In other words, even if your insurance card says “Aetna” or “UnitedHealthcare,” in some cases those companies only act as administrators. This means that employers bear the risk of rising costs.
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