David Schweikert to Young Republicans: “It’s not fat shaming, it’s actually fat loving”
According to a new report from The Daily Beast, vulnerable Arizona Congressman David Schweikert has “a novel idea on how to reduce the deficit: tightening the belts of Americans through Ozempic.”
Speaking at a Young Republicans presentation, Schweikert claimed that his proposal to increase Ozempic access for “morbidly obese populations” on government health care was “not fat shaming,” but “fat loving.”
“What would happen if you took morbidly obese populations on Medicare, Medicaid, Indian Health Services, the VA and gave them access to it?,” Schweikert asked.
What’s more: Schweikert – who previously misstated that there is a cure for type-1 diabetes – has made federal health care spending on diabetes a focus of his Congressional activity. Nonetheless, he voted twice against capping the cost of insulin to $35 per month for qualified households.
The Daily Beast: GOP Rep Wants to Cut Waistlines—and the U.S. Budget—With Ozempic
Riley Rogerson | October 22, 2023
- Conservative Rep. Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) has long wanted to tighten the U.S. government’s belt. But now, he has a novel idea on how to reduce the deficit: tightening the belts of Americans through Ozempic.
- Schweikert wants to expand access to medications that have been shown to assist weight loss, with the rationale that these drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Saxenda—known in the pharmaceutical world as “GLP-1 receptor agonists”—could improve health outcomes for Americans and therefore decrease long term health-care costs.
- “Next year, one of the GLP-1s, the Ozempics, goes off-patent,” Schweikert said during a presentation to Four Peaks Young Republicans. “The price is gonna crash. What would happen if you took morbidly obese populations on Medicare, Medicaid, Indian Health Services, the VA and gave them access to it?”
- “It’s not fat shaming; it’s actually fat loving,” Schweikert said. “We can love our brothers and sisters back to health.”
- The drug with perhaps the most name recognition, Ozempic, took off on social media as influencers championed the drug as a weight-loss miracle. TikTok users have viewed the Ozempic hashtag 1.3 billion times. Similar drugs like Wegovy have also skyrocketed in popularity.
- While social media users tout these drugs as weight-loss marvels, experts have warned that Ozempic’s side effects, which include malnutrition and gastrointestinal problems, aren’t as pleasant as Ozempic obsessives may present. Little is known about the long-term impact of the drug and other GLP-1s.
- Schweikert mentioned Ozempic by name during his presentation to Four Peaks Young Republicans but, during an interview last week, he emphasized to The Daily Beast that he sees the economic and health benefits of GLP-1 medications broadly.
- “It’s more just the concept, what would happen if the most powerful thing you can do on U.S. debt—because debt’s out of control, we’re borrowing over $75,000 a second—is actually through health?” Schweikert asked.
- (Schweikert, it should be noted, has had some budgeting problems of his own. His campaign committee agreed to a $125,000 fine for misusing donor money in February 2022.)
- But Schweikert, a lean House Freedom Caucus member who represents parts of Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, Arizona, may be overstating exactly how much these drugs could help Americans balance lower numbers on the scale—and the government balance the budget.
- An October Congressional Budget Office article cast doubt on the idea that expanding Medicare coverage to GLP-1s for weight loss would bring down the national debt at the moment.
- The budgetary effect of Medicare covering anti-obesity medications would depend on drug costs at the time. At current prices, which can come to over $1,000 a month, the CBO assessed that Medicare coverage of drugs like Ozempic for weight loss would “increase overall federal spending.”
- Ozempic and Wegovy have been cash cows for its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk. The Danish drugmaker giant spent $2.9 million lobbying the federal government on a range of issues in 2023, including obesity drug coverage and the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act.
###