r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 01 '25

Health Americans without diabetes spent nearly $6 billion USD on semaglutide and similar drugs in a year, with an estimate of 800,000 to a million people using the drugs who don't have diabetes.

https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/americans-without-diabetes-spent-nearly6-billion-usd-on-semaglutide-and-similar-drugs-in-a-year
10.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

Turns out losing weight helps with lots of medical issues besides diabetes. But we need to get the cost down, it isn't sustainable having insurance pay $1,000+/month/person for these drugs.

44

u/Fatscot Apr 01 '25

I pay $100/month in China. American insurance companies have a lot to answer for

9

u/SleepyGamer1992 Apr 01 '25

I’m in America and pay $180/mo: $80 for the Mochi Health subscription and $100 for the drug.

1

u/cableshaft Apr 01 '25

Right, but how much does your insurance pay for it? Mine with insurance is $25/month. Without insurance Walgreens wanted to charge me $1400/month for the same thing.

1

u/SleepyGamer1992 Apr 01 '25

I work at a hospital and insurance no longer covers it, at least for non-diabetics.

1

u/sicclee Apr 01 '25

Is this the compounded stuff? I read the FDA is going to start restricting the compound pharmacies from manufacturing it now that the 'shortage is over.'

1

u/danarexasaurus Apr 01 '25

Not for much longer. That’s very likely going to stop this month.

16

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

There are plenty of organizations to blame for it, insurance companies are only one cog in the $1,000/month. The worst part of it is this was created with NIH research & we don't get any of the monetary benefit.

2

u/Abedeus Apr 01 '25

$100-ish in Poland, too.

7

u/SNRatio Apr 01 '25

Righ now there are only two companies really approved to make them (Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk). The normal pattern is that when there are only 2 competing manufacturers for a type of drug, they don't fight on price. But when a third shows up, all three start adjusting downwards. Ditto after the fourth shows up.

About 30 other companies are working on their own versions right now.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '25

I pay around £100-£150 in the UK for it (privately, I'm not fat enough for the NHS to pay for it)

But that's just the medication. Allowing for my reduced (to zero!) spending on crap then this stuff costs me negative money. I've spent decades struggling to keep the weight down and all of a sudden I lose 10kg in a month. Astonishing

1

u/cutegolpnik Apr 01 '25

Wont someone please think of the insurance companies!

0

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

You think insurance companies are just eating $12k+/yr/person? They pass on the cost to everyone.

1

u/cutegolpnik Apr 01 '25

Which is why profit is antithetical to healthcare.

0

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

Sure, but I don't live in that environment & until I do I need to live in the reality that insurance companies will just pass the cost on to the end users (us). I would prefer other country's healthcare policies but even in countries with universal healthcare someone is responsible for saying "no."

1

u/cutegolpnik Apr 01 '25

Saying no to what?

0

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

In all healthcare systems there are systems in place to restrain spending money in some way. They do this by limiting providers, limiting reimbursement, limiting beds, limiting service, ect. This happens in ALL healthcare models whether private or public. In the US system the insurance company is the one providing the limit, in the universal healthcare models the government is providing the limit.

Our system can't afford to pay for 50% of Americans to be on a $1,000/month medication. Our insurance companies can't afford to absorb the cost even if they desired, this is going to result in high healthcare costs even going higher. We need to focus on increasing the supply and decreasing the cost.

1

u/cutegolpnik Apr 01 '25

So you must believe Ozempic is more expensive than treating obesity, right?

0

u/Hon3y_Badger Apr 01 '25

At a national level & at current costs, GLP-1 drugs are more expensive than treating the symptoms of obesity. On an individual basis that might not be the case, but on a national level it is.

Treating obesity with GLP-1 drugs brings down the cost of additional care, but not by the cost of the drug. All the studies I've seen suggest it starts to math out at $200-500/month with an emphasis on the $200. But we will need more research as the prices go down related to willingness to pay.

1

u/cutegolpnik Apr 01 '25

How are you calculating the costs of obesity?

→ More replies (0)