Posts Tagged ‘health insurance’

A pitched battle is underway. The fight is for equitable access to obesity medicines that can be life-changing for people living with obesity. Right now, we have a bit of a stalemate and money is the sticking point. So when Andrew Ross Sorkin put the question of greed, economics, and health to the CEO of […]

A man was murdered this week in a manner of cold determination. As of this writing, we do not know why. But because he was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare – America’s largest health insurer – many people are interpreting this murder as an expression of rage and contempt for the health insurance industry. Some are […]

Well, this is exciting. The news just flashed across our screen that the outgoing Biden administration is proposing to open up Medicare and Medicaid to coverage for obesity meds. Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers Medicare and Medicaid Services, said: “We don’t want to see people having to wait until they have these additional diseases […]

Since forever, health systems have been closed to the need for obesity care. While obesity prevalence tripled, care providers, health plans, and even government policy doubled down on a simple response. “Your obesity is not our problem. It’s yours. Go away, eat less, move more, and come back when you’ve lost 25, 50, or 100 […]

With a bipartisan a vote of 36-4 yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee passed an amended version of TROA – the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act. Honestly, after a decade of toiling away to educate legislators about the need for this, we need a pinch to assure ourselves it’s real. This is great  news […]

It’s quite weird, actually, watching the contortions of health plans as they twist to resist the rising tide of obesity medicines. Because despite the twisting and contortions, obesity medicines are as difficult to resist as a rising tide. Those who pretend it is not happening find themselves under water. A new survey from the International […]

Prior authorizations are a driving force in the burnout of physicians, denial of medical care, and the profitability of health insurance and pharmacy benefit plans. By one estimate, healthcare providers spend $35 billion every year on chasing down prior authorizations so that their patients can receive the care they need – whether that is a […]

In a new cohort study, it is plain to see that, even before the advent of new GLP-1 medicines for obesity, primary care patients could get better health from obesity care. But health systems hindering delivery of obesity care make this exceedingly unlikely for most people living this disease. A Large Cohort Study from an […]

Who knew that financial toxicity was a thing? Perhaps like us, you have merely thought of it as the financial burden of healthcare – without assigning it the status of a medical complication that dysfunctional healthcare causes. But recent publications are making it ever more clear that people living with chronic diseases are having to […]

Obesity is the most prevalent chronic disease in America, so you might think that prescriptions for obesity medicines are relatively common – but only if you are unfamiliar with prevailing attitudes about these medicines. Because in fact, even in a large health system known for excellent care in cardiometabolic health, these prescriptions are rather rare. […]