--- title: Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss description: The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications. canonical: https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-04-07T18:53:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:08.516Z article:section: Health og:title: Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss og:description: The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications. og:url: https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta49809c850734c51/6998c5961f6709a466f56454/wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss twitter:description: The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta49809c850734c51/6998c5961f6709a466f56454/wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: How Weight Loss Drugs Work [Watch (HLS stream): How Weight Loss Drugs Work](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yiIE8WSy.m3u8) (1:21)  _Published 2024-09-27. The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 7, 2025 6:53 PM UTC  Wegovy; Zepbound Wegovy; Zepbound Steve Christo—Corbis/Getty Images; Shelby Knowles—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 7, 2025 6:53 PM UTC The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently [announced](https://thehill.com/homenews/5233357-medicare-medicaid-obesity-biden-trump/#:~:text=The%20Centers%20for%20Medicare%20and,%2Ddemand%20GLP%2D1%20medications.)—without explanation—that it would not proceed with a proposal initiated by the Biden Administration to cover weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound for its beneficiaries. Medicare and Medicaid recipients can be reimbursed for the medications to treat diabetes, but currently the anti-obesity versions of these drugs will not be covered. As an obesity treatment, Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, comes with a slightly higher dose for treating obesity than doses for diabetes; the medication is otherwise the same. For Zepbound, developed by Lilly, it's the same drug and administered in the same dose as Mounjaro, which is used to treat diabetes. The Biden proposal would have included coverage of Wegovy and Zepbound to treat obesity under Medicare Part D for Medicare Advantage. “While today’s announcement was limited, we hope that with the confirmation of the new CMS director, the Trump Administration will move forward to finalize the definition of obesity. It is essential that CMS regulations are aligned with current medical science—and that means recognizing obesity as a serious chronic disease,” a spokesperson from Novo Nordisk said in a statement to TIME. A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement to TIME that the company “is disappointed in the MA-Part D rule because it is not the best reading of the statute and impacts patient access to obesity treatments,” referring to the program that allows enrollees to receive coverage of prescription drugs, including through private plans and through Medicare Advantage. “We will continue to work with the Trump Administration and Congressional leaders to ensure people living with obesity are covered by Medicare and Medicaid and are no longer left behind.” The decision not to expand coverage to include obesity treatment would mean nearly 7.5 million Medicare and Medicaid recipients won’t be reimbursed for the drug to help them lose weight. Government health care financing analysts noted in Sept. 2024 that the high cost of the drugs would [result in higher government spending](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12758) with “little information on longer-term effects of the drugs.” However, health experts have raised concerns that denying coverage could lead to additional health costs for insurers, as scientists are discovering that the drugs come with many [other health benefits](https://time.com/7207986/health-risks-benefits-weight-loss-drugs-ozempic-wegovy/). The drugs have already received additional indications from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to [lower the risk of heart disease](https://time.com/6899164/wegovy-weight-loss-drug-heart-disease/) and [obstructive sleep apnea](https://time.com/7203597/zepbound-sleep-apnea-fda/). And researchers are currently studying them for other benefits as well, including reducing the risk of kidney, liver, and brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and addiction. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/"},"headline":"Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss","datePublished":"2025-04-07T18:53:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:50:08.516Z","description":"The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications.","url":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/","keywords":["Drugs","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta49809c850734c51/6998c5961f6709a466f56454/wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta49809c850734c51/6998c5961f6709a466f56454/wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"wegovy-zepbound-medicare_c78d39","caption":"Wegovy; Zepbound","creditText":"Steve Christo—Corbis/Getty Images; Shelby Knowles—Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/drugs/","name":"Drugs"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/","name":"Medicare Will Not Cover GLP-1 Drugs for Weight Loss"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Weight Loss Drugs Work","description":"The decision counters a proposal by the Biden Administration to reimburse beneficiaries for the weight-loss medications.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/yiIE8WSy/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-09-27T22:21:56.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yiIE8WSy.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/","duration":"PT1M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/7275495/medicare-glp-1-drugs-weight-loss/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```