Thank you for all the messages after the Bari Weiss podcast. I’ve been having many interesting conversations and want to clarify one point about the Ozempic debate.
This debate about whether we should be using taxpayer money to subsidize Ozempic for obese/overweight Americans symbolizes almost every important larger issue with healthcare policy.
I want to be clear: I am not reflexively against Ozempic. Some friends said they plan to pay out of pocket and use it to lose weight. That is fine as long as the risks of the drug are clear.
My issue is the idea that taxpayers and insurance programs will treat obesity as a disease and cover this drug for a large percentage of Americans.
This continues the 95% healthcare costs occurring on an intervention after someone gets sick. This makes no sense. No third party would look at the fact that 80% of adults are overweight or obese and say the solution is to give everyone a very marginal drug once they are overweight. No, the obvious answer is to focus on food and other metabolic habits (exercise and sleep) that can reverse and prevent obesity – and keep our cells healthy, so we don’t get other metabolic conditions.
Ozempic is on the path to becoming the most revenue-generating drug in American history. $500 billion of government money per year could pay for that. What if we used that money to incentivize better food and better habits? We’ve been conditioned to think Americans don’t want to change, but if healthier food was cheaper and kids were trained at a young age about the importance of sleep and exercise — these habits and health trends would improve quickly.
All chronic conditions – including obesity – are tied to a breakdown in these core metabolic habits. We will not reverse the impact of an unsustainable healthcare budget or become healthier until we realize this.
TrueMed.com is one effort to shift healthcare spending towards root cause solutions like food and exercise. I am grateful to be in the fight with so many others trying to change health incentives from sickcare to healthcare.
I discussed these ideas and actionable solutions on another podcast with Max Lugavere. Check it out here.
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Calley Means 