Ways to reduce healthcare spending? Musk: Nothing is more beneficial to American health than "ultra-low-cost" weight loss drugs

Elon Musk advocates for the use of weight loss drugs to reduce healthcare spending in the United States.

On December 11th local time, Musk made a striking statement on social media platform X: Nothing can improve the health, lifespan, and quality of life of Americans better than very inexpensive GLP-1 drugs.

Currently, due to drug shortages, high prices, and lack of insurance coverage, GLP-1 drugs remain out of reach for many American consumers.

Recently, the Biden administration has been pushing for Medicare and state Medicaid programs to include obesity drugs in their coverage, and Congress is reviewing related legislation—however, while this would significantly increase the accessibility of these drugs, it could also lead to an additional expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the "Department of Government Efficiency" has previously promised to cut trillions of dollars in federal spending.

So, why does Musk still advocate for GLP-1 drugs? In fact, Musk sees these drugs as a long-term cost-saving measure: he points out that most healthcare spending occurs at the end of life, and obesity is often a significant factor leading to disease.

Therefore, the key question is how to bring the cost of GLP-1 drugs down to "extremely low."

As of now, Musk has not specified this, and analysts expect that these drugs will qualify for price negotiation under Medicare in the future, which may be a way to reduce their costs