The Orange Man standing mindlessly while someone is being helped after fainting in the Oval Office is a perfect picture. But I do believe he was having a seizure of some kind. That kind of blank stare seems health-related, and only amplifies the mystery: What, exactly, is wrong with the president of the United States? Besides the obvious dementia, I mean.
The occasion of the picture was a press conference announcing his deal for obesity drugs. I for one was fairly cynical about Trump's plan -- not because it's a bad idea (it isn't!), but because I suspect the idea was driven by his personal distaste for fat people. Via the New York Times:
Mr. Trump, top U.S. health officials and drug company executives at the White House outlined broader coverage of the injectable drugs for people on Medicare and Medicaid, the federal insurance programs for older people; many who have disabilities; and those with lower incomes. The deal also lowers the prices the government programs will pay.
Those measures are likely to expand access but still will stop far short of covering all of the millions of people with obesity under the federal programs.
Officials said that within the next few months, Americans would be able to use their own money to buy Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound — which are each taken as weekly shots — directly from manufacturers for an average of $350 a month, depending on the dose. The officials said they expected the average cost to fall to $245 over the next two years.
Starting around the middle of next year, Medicare and Medicaid’s costs for the injectable drugs will drop to $245 a month. That coverage will be for people who meet certain medical criteria, like having moderate or severe obesity. People can also have mild obesity accompanied by kidney disease, heart failure or uncontrolled hypertension. Or they can have a body mass index of 27 alongside prediabetes or established cardiovascular disease.
Just want to point out that thanks to Joe Biden, most people on Medicare are already eligible for an affordable installment plan on obesity drugs. Remember that $2000 cap on Medicare drug co-pays he passed? That means if your Part D plan covers the drugs, and you have one of the designated conditions, you can apply through your Part D provider to enroll in the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. It spreads that $2000 copay over 12 months, depending on which month you sign up. (I paid somewhere around $105 a month for Zepbound, which finally brought down my stubbornly high blood pressure.)
It applies to all expensive covered drugs, not just for obesity.
