Last month, the Gov. Andy Beshear administration proposed to withdraw a prohibition on weight loss drugs from being covered by Medicaid, but the Kentucky Senate recently repealed that change, arguing it would cost the state too much money to take on the cost of the GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, to treat obesity, Austin Horn reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Horn reports that the list price of these drugs hovers around $1,000 a month. Senate Bill 65, sponsored by Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, “would nullify a handful of administrative regulations that were found deficient by the Legislature’s Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee. The bill passed 26-6, with all present Republicans voting yes and all six Democrats voting no,” Horn reports. “The administration wanted to expand Medicaid coverage for GLP-1s. Doctors were already allowed to prescribe GLP-1s, but this expanded it further. We felt it could have been a huge cost and a huge policy discussion,” West, chair of the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee, told Horn. A statement late last year from the Obesity Action Center called on the Kentucky legislature to remove the Medicaid ban on obesity medications to give health care providers a tool to manage this chronic condition that affects more than 34% of adults in the state, costing the state an estimated $36 billion annually. (The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  obesity data shows that 37.2 % of Kentucky adults are considered obese, according to the 2024 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey.” Tags: General Assembly Medicaid obesity The post Gov. Beshear and Kentucky Senate disagree on whether GLP-1s should be covered by Medicaid appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less