Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has extolled the benefits of anti-obesity drugs such as Ozempic, pitching them on his show and social media channels.
Oz’s potential boss, Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thinks the drugs are a scam, and the solution to obesity is to eat and live healthier.
“The first line of response should be lifestyle. It should be eating well, making sure that you don’t get obese,” Kennedy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in a Dec. 12 interview.
Kennedy’s position is also seemingly at odds with billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk, who is co-lead of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a government advisory panel focused on cutting government spending. Musk previously credited Wegovy with helping him lose weight and recently said the drugs need to be made more widely available.
Musk posted a photo of himself on X on Christmas Day dressed as Santa, with the caption “Ozempic Santa.”
The divergent views set up a potential clash within the next administration, which will face a costly decision over whether to allow Medicare to cover the life-changing drugs.
Medicare is currently prohibited from covering weight loss drugs for anything other than treating conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Currently, only 13 states cover GLP-1 drugs for obesity under Medicaid.
But a new proposal announced by the Biden administration in November would require Medicare and Medicaid coverage of weight loss drugs for people with obesity.
It’s a move that could impact coverage for millions of Americans and would be extremely popular — but also extremely expensive. Authorizing coverage of anti-obesity medications in Medicare would increase federal spending by about $35 billion from 2026 to 2034, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.
It will be up to the Trump administration to decide whether to move forward with the plan.
