Posted on 12/12/2024 11:12:06 AM PST by libstripper
A few years ago, West Virginia, which has the highest obesity rate in the nation, quietly began a small and unusual pilot program that would touch hundreds of lives: It started covering obesity drugs for state employees—even as many other insurers balked at what they considered expensive “vanity” drugs.
The program was, by health measures, a success. Patients shed as much as 120 pounds, their cholesterol dropped, their prediabetes faded, and they cut down on blood-pressure meds. As word began to spread, more patients wanted to join. A school nurse told me her weight loss inspired at least six other teachers and staff to get into the pilot program too.
Then it all came to an abrupt end. In March, the state’s Public Employee Insurance Agency (PEIA) decided it could no longer bear the crushing costs of Wegovy and Zepbound. (These obesity drugs are sometimes better known by the brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro, respectively, which is how they are sold for diabetes.)
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
If prescribed for diabetes it should have some coverage. If using for vanity weight loss only, I think spending $50 a week out of pocket makes sense, you’re saving that in candy bars and soda each week.
Wait, hasn’t sleepy Joe Biden said that Medicare/Medicaid was now going to cover Ozempic and its clones? That should turn out about as well as everything else the left does.
These drugs have very little to do with weight loss by themselves. Drugs like these, which contain the active ingredient semaglutide, help with weight loss by mimicking a natural hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), essentially signaling to the brain that you are full, thus reducing appetite and making you feel satiated after eating less food; it also slows down stomach emptying, contributing to a feeling of fullness. Bt it also limits the amount of nutrients you consume by not eating enough.
A good weight loss program always contains exercise with that cutting back on consumption. But the public has been led to believe another get rich quick thought process by fooling the body into artificially thinking it has recieved a full proportion of food to use for that exercise. You don’t go as far in the car if you fill the tank half full and expect to get the results of a full tank.
There has been a lot of commercialing about using these drugs for weight loss and always in the small print it says exercise is pertinent to the success of the program and always required. Without the fuel to exercise, the body quits losing weight and adjusts to the intake rather than the desire.
Rather than fool your body, use a diet that covers your needs naurally. I suggest the Harris Benedict Formula for diet control by cutting no more than a recommended 500 calories off your daily consumption of that amount determined by you and not a catch all number. Most weight loss companies use it to determine their food recommendations.
wy69
I was on Ozempic. It did nothing for me. My problem is I do not eat for satiety; I eat for taste.
I really don’t need to get Ozempic, I just need to alter the motivators for eating. That, alone, will cause me to lose weight.
Zepbound and Wegovy cost about 600 per week without insurance. Ozempic is about 400 per week without insurance. 50 a week is what the copay would be with most insurances.
I get compounded Ozempic for 750 for a 6 month supply. I’ve lost almost half my body weight and now do 10 miles a day on my exercise bike.
Most of it was lost eating Keto and fasting 48 hours 3x a week. But eventually I stalled and plateaued and simply couldn’t maintain fasting discipline anymore. And I couldn’t exercise because I felt fatigued 24/7. The “food noise” made me feral.
Ozempic has stopped the noise and given me hope that I can get the last 75lbs off. I had energy and bought a exercise bike and literally rode 10 miles the first day and every day since.
I do think the price problems are temporary, as in the minute it goes generic, the price will plummet because everyone will be getting in the game of producing and selling it.
And I no longer take BP meds and my cholesterol levels are golden.
A cost of 400 dollars per week would be cost-effective in most cases. A stroke, congestive heart failure, or kidney failure could easily cost more than 20’800 annually. 20800 is the cost per annum at 400 each week. Insurance companies must assume that the diabetic will die within three to five years without the medication. That would be the only circumstance that would possibly create a net gain.
Incredibly short sighted of people to imagine they’ll be on a drug for life when the long term side effects of that drug are still unknown.
What we do know is most people who lose weight on it will regain the weight shortly after getting off it.
There is a better way - 1. Food discipline - if you shouldn’t eat it, don’t buy it. 2. Move more - start walking and just keep walking. Don’t be satisfied with 10,000 steps… once you get there, keep adding more. Find the time to be nice to your future self.
Seems like a very expensive way to avoid self-control.
I was on mounjaro but at $500-$600/mo, I couldn’t afford it. It removes the appetite; the thought of food never occurs to you. I can get it through a local clinic for $150/mo. Maybe after Christmas...
I was on mounjaro but at $500-$600/mo, I couldn’t afford it. It removes the appetite; the thought of food never occurs to you. I can get it through a local clinic for $150/mo. Maybe after Christmas...
The problem is not overweight folk.
The problem is spiritual undernourishment and spiritual starvation.
I’d rather be a bit overweight and on the right spiritual path, than be an ideal weight and be spiritually lost.
Whether Oprah has an Ozempic body or not is of little matter.
She’s a lost soul in my view.
I eat to feel full and for taste. I still lost weight on mounjaro.
That's why health care costs are thru the roof.
I am currently on Wegovy.
I am a strange duck. My metabolism is VERY slow. Heart rate hovers around 40. Low body temperature...about 96.7 most of the time.
They put me on some amphetamines for 90 days to see what would happen. I lost about 15 pounds. Good, but not great.
Doc sent me to a bariatric doctor. She put me on a much lower dose, different, amphetamine. It took me a year to lose another 15 pound AND I developed AFIB and had a stroke.
Bariatric doctor got me approved for Wegovy. It doesn’t help your metabolism, it eliminates your desire to eat. That wasn’t my problem as I generally only consume about 1200 to 1500 calories a day and have a physical job and go to the gym 3 times a week.
Anyway, I have been eating ridiculously little for almost a year on Wegovy and have lost another 10 pounds. In a year.
I was borderline diabetic, but that is pretty much gone.
Between everything I have dropped about 40 pounds from my highest weight, or about 15%. What I need is a full endocrine system diagnostic, but insurance won’t pay for it and I don’t have a spare $10K laying around.
It’s all about intake and output. Eat more, exercise less = weight gain. Eat less, exercise more = weight loss. To keep muscle over fat, stop eating sugar, sat fat oils, and white bread. Eat more protein. It isn’t that hard.
You are 100% correct.
And the only side effect of a rational diet and regular exercise side is losing weight and gaining strength/stamina, unlike the multitude of side effects of drugs.
Watch Gordon Ramsey, he doesn’t swallow food that he doesn’t want to, that doesn’t taste good to him.
When you buy a package of cookies and aside from the sweet taste you know they aren’t really very good, then try to learn to throw them out rather than continue settling for them just because they have the basic sweetness, and that goes for other foods that have the basics, fat, salt, or sweet, or whatever, but that you know should be spit out rather than eaten by you out of mere tolerance, or habit, or hesitancy to waste.
My guess is these insurance companies would prefer to spend 50% more to treat fat, overweight, diabetic patients with high cholesterol and hypertension due to the fact they are obese. Instead of authorizing Ozempic.
Check out the gastro effects. They lead to Gastroparesis, paralyze GI tract, and rewire your thyroid.
It is not pleasant. My eldest is long term Type 2, and said he never took such a crappy drug.
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