4 ms·

It’s unfortunate that shutting these companies down will result in less people gaining access to the drug. GLP-1’s might be the best thing to happen to medicin

• notesinthefield 8mo ago
  It was infuriating trying to get Wegovy via insurance. My doctor made three appeals, all denied. Out of pocket it wouldve been $1600/mo. Ive been getting semaglutide from compounding pharmacies for the last year and half for $149-$200. I have lost 97lbs, come back to running 30 miles a week after several major knee injuries made even a mile jog a multiday recovery effort. I absolutely get the regulatory stance but the name brands are absolutely unaffordable.
  • bdcravens 8mo ago
    Do you have diabetes, heart disease, or another condition necessitating a GLP-1?
    • SOLAR_FIELDS 8mo ago
      Why is obesity not considered a necessitating condition? It often carries the comorbidities you just mentioned. Should not exclude people just because they haven’t had these specific health problems (yet) but will eventually have them.
      • bdcravens 8mo ago
        While I tend to agree, insurance companies don't see it that way. They need a doctor to indicate a necessity to treat a condition, as opposed to it being the easiest way to treat it. For example, I have to take digestive enzymes to digest my food (pancreatic insufficiency). For someone with an unusually high metabolism, they would also give them a leg up on gaining weight, even though there are other approaches to gaining that weight. However in many cases, the insurance company wouldn't cover their prescription when they will mine.
        • SOLAR_FIELDS 8mo ago
          As always it’s insurance nonsense. If incentives were aligned insurance companies would be lining up out the door to give this to obese people because they (the insurance companies) would eventually be on the hook for paying for the care of the conditions you just mentioned. It is very well demonstrated in literature that obese people have a much higher occurrence of these conditions than non obese people. But the system is not set up with aligned incentives
      • SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
        The problem is that if it's just about obesity, you have to prove that cheaper treatments such as diet and exercise didn't work. That's not impossible to do, but it's hard and annoying even for people who really were trying. My doctor told me that you basically have to keep a detailed journal of your weight loss efforts for months on end. Are GLP-1s so much more effective that we should make an exception to the general principle, maximizing healthcare resources by providing the cheapest effective treatment? I kinda think so, but I have a conflict of interest, and I can understand why others might think that money is better spent elsewhere.
    • notesinthefield 8mo ago
      I was 347lbs at the time. Wasnt a diabetic (nor pre-diabetic) no heart disease, blood pressure or really anything other than my weight. Prior to then Id had two massive bouts of weight loss at 50-100lbs so I know what it takes. Id tried but this last time without meds was extremely hard. You cant do much in the way of productive exercise when both your shoulders need replacement at 30 and between two knees have an ACL tear and two MCL tears. To top it off I had wildly out of whack hormones.
    • gsk22 8mo ago
      I think you would be hard-pressed to find any human who has been 100 pounds overweight for any amount of time that doesn't have an obesity-related comorbidity. Hypertension, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, etc are all common in the general population and exacerbated or even caused by the physical and lifestyle conditions that beget obesity.
  • Auracle 8mo ago
    They’re down to hundreds a month, now, with a coupon. I can’t say I disagree with insurance not being willing to pay those costs (apart from diabetes patients etc.). I bet a large part of the reason you can get the name brands cheaper now is because they did the math they’d make more that way than they could squeeze out of insurance companies. Also, on a personal level it rubs me the wrong way to have my insurance premiums go towards something that people could just do themselves, from something they did to themselves. I know many will disagree, of course, and there are other examples (say, lung cancer treatments) that are similar.
    • sowbug 8mo ago
      People with high blood pressure could just try harder to relax, too.
    • toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      > Also, on a personal level it rubs me the wrong way to have my insurance premiums go towards something that people could just do themselves, from something they did to themselves. I know many will disagree, of course, and there are other examples (say, lung cancer treatments) that are similar. Our Obsession With Personal Responsibility Is Making Us Sick - https://jacobin.com/2026/02/health-inequality-individual-responsibility-class https://jacobin.com/2026/02/health-inequality-individual-res... - February 6th, 2026
    • cogman10 8mo ago
      > lung cancer treatments A fairly large portion of lung cancer patients didn't "do it to themselves" (about 20% and rising). It remains to be seen how vaping impacts lung cancer, I don't like the idea of finding reasons to penalize people for predicable life decisions that lead to treatment needs. Insurance companies have a lot of resources to make those predictions and if unshackled they aren't afraid of using them. Making construction workers, miners, or truck drivers pay more (or be denied outright) for insurance because their job has negative health effects would be bad for society.
      • junofan 8mo ago
  • burnt-resistor 8mo ago
    I was receiving compounded Semaglutide (Wegovy generic) from Victory Pharmacy, a brick & mortar compounding pharmacy, in Austin for $150/mo, then $200/mo, and finally I stopped when it reached $250/mo. I have SSDI and Medicare but it wasn't covered and it's still not covered for pharmacologically-induced obesity or weight gain. If I developed diabetes, then it would be covered as Ozempic (lower dose). I'm having to go without because of bureaucratic gatekeeping and discrimination and because of opportunists cash grabs by pharmaceutical companies' price gouging.
• lvspiff 8mo ago
  Was my glucose under control without glp-1's? Yeah I could manage an a1c of 5.4-5.6 with metformin but I was still hovering near 300 lbs. With glp-1's I'm down over 50 lbs, my a1c is a much more manageable around 4.0-4.5 and it makes it much easier to exercise and portion control is a huge benefit. Not to mention a buncha other things like triglicerides and blood pressure have come down due to exercise and eating better. it sucks i have to take it forever, but at the same time i feel a ton better physically, and if i loose 50 more lbs, and labs continue to show improvement, i can reduce the cocktail of other meds I'm on my doc says. Cigna denied me at first until my doc appealed twice. Cigna wouldnt cover because i wasnt a full diabetic so wasnt on insulin. I would've had to pay close to $1k a month to take it otherwise. Thank goodness for a tenacious doctor!
  • loeg 8mo ago
    > I would've had to pay close to $1k a month to take it otherwise. If your frame of reference for GLP-1 prices is in like, 2024 or earlier, check prices again. They've come down a lot. You can get tirzepatide from Lilly without insurance coverage for under $500/mo (a little less for the smaller doses): https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lilly-lowers-price-zepboundr-tirzepatide-single-dose-vials https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
  • tombert 8mo ago
    I've been taking metformin off-label for weight loss, and it's been working well. I'm a little annoyed that I have to resort to off label stuff because I too have Cigna and I have not been successful at getting them to cover it. I think it's more my employer's fault than anything else; fortunately metformin actually seems to be doing the job. They won't cover that either but even without insurance it's so cheap that it's not worth complaining about.