‘Nothing would do more’: Elon Musk pitches a wild healthcare plan to lessen government spending
Elon Musk is now giving health advice. Or he’s attempting to fix a government spending issue by pushing a drug on people to combat obesity in America. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Musk’s idea of helping fix government spending, thanks to his nomination for DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) in Donald Trump’s cabinet, is to make drugs meant to help those with diabetes more affordable to the general public. “Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors [sic] super low cost to the public,” Musk on X. “Nothing else is even close.”
This is also part of the plan for the Biden administration. President Joe Biden has pushed Medicare and Medicaid to cover the cost of weight loss drugs after a law from 2003 banned Medicare from doing so. This comes at a time when celebrities have made Ozempic, made for those with diabetes or pre-diabetic conditions, to help them lose weight.
There is no news on how Musk plans on making these drugs available at a low-cost and many are still unaware of the longterm symptoms of using these kinds of drugs for weight loss alone. But Musk pushing something like this that the Biden administration was already working on as if it was his idea is not surprising. Whether or not the law can be changed is still unknown.
Every new weight loss fad ends up becoming expensive, geared towards celebrities, and not beneficial to those who need it. Musk’s plan to make it affordable doesn’t necessarily negate its importance but it does push a dangerous message about things like GLP drugs.
We really are misunderstanding the point of medicine like Ozempic
Weight loss and gain has always been a hot topic in this country. The way we obsess over how we look and our bodies is something that many Americans struggle with. By making weight loss drugs easier to obtain, we’re going to have an issue with people who don’t need them taking them. It already is happening with celerities, particularly reality television stars.
But using the drug to combat obesity isn’t going to end well. It is honestly terrifying when there are people who do need these drugs that are denied because of insurance and yet people like Musk thinks we should open it up to more American consumers. How this helps with cutting down on spending, I do not know. But it is just a little terrifying that the solution everyone has to weight loss is just to open up the use of GLPs to more people.
The spending on health research shouldn’t go to telling people to just take a drug they might not need but with both the Biden administration and now the Trump administration pushing for this, we might see a shift in who can and cannot have access to drugs like Ozempic to help with weight loss. Hopefully, we do more research on the long term effects of them first though.
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