{"id":3151,"date":"2026-08-25T10:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=3151"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:38:13","slug":"pharmalittle-states-opting-out-of-medicaid-obesity-drug-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=3151","title":{"rendered":"Pharmalittle: States opting out of Medicaid obesity-drug coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div><p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was relaxing and invigorating because that oh-too-familiar routine of meetings, deadlines, and the like has returned with a vengeance. You knew this would happen, yes? To cope, we are relying, as always, on cups of stimulation. Our choice today is tiramisu. Feel free to join us. Remember, no prescription is required. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits to help you along. Best of luck accomplishing your goals today and, of course, do keep in touch. \u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>President\u00a0Trump\u2019s pledge to make pricey weight loss drugs widely available for low-income Americans is not panning out as planned<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/08\/22\/states-reject-trump-medicaid-weight-loss-drug-price-deal-01045776\" id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/08\/22\/states-reject-trump-medicaid-weight-loss-drug-price-deal-01045776\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Politico<\/a> explains. Last year, Trump promised Medicaid would provide access to GLP-1 drugs if states signed on with his administration to negotiate prices directly with manufacturers. But only Indiana has publicly done so. Some states stopped covering the drugs for Medicaid patients who need them for weight loss. Others are considering ending coverage. States opting out of coverage cited budget constraints and concerns about the long-term financial sustainability of\u00a0Trump\u2019s model.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Trump administration plans to use a new approach to deny Medicaid coverage of drugs for gender-affirming care<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/08\/24\/transgender-care-ban-precedent-could-be-broadly-applied-medicaid-states\/\" id=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/08\/24\/transgender-care-ban-precedent-could-be-broadly-applied-medicaid-states\/\">STAT<\/a> tells us. The precedent it sets could also be used to avoid paying for other drugs, upending an expectation that Medicaid covers the vast majority of prescription medicines. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services\u00a0issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/08\/14\/cms-transgender-care-rule-how-will-legal-challenges-fare\/\">final rule<\/a>\u00a0this month barring use of federal Medicaid and CHIP funding to pay for pediatric gender-affirming medications and surgery. The rule, set to go into effect Oct. 13, attracted attention because it is the latest development in the administration\u2019s campaign to halt transgender health care for young people.<\/p>\n<div class=\"restricted-content-breaker article\" aria-labelledby=\"restricted-story-heading\" aria-describedby=\"restricted-story-description\" checked=\"false\">\n<div class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bar\">\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=75&resize=75&ssl=1 75w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=100&resize=100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=150&resize=150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=240&resize=240&ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=320&resize=320&ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=500&resize=500&ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=640&resize=640&ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=800&resize=800&ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=1024&resize=1024&ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=1280&resize=1280&ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1&w=1600&resize=1600&ssl=1 1600w\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png?ssl=1\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"stat-paywall-archive\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==\" fifu-lazy=\"1\" fifu-data-sizes=\"auto\" fifu-data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 75w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 100w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 150w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 240w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 320w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 500w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 640w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 800w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 1024w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 1280w, https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg 1600w\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" fifu-data-src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"restricted-story-heading\">This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"restricted-story-description\">Unlock this article \u2014 plus in-depth analysis, newsletters, premium events, and news alerts.<\/h3>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"restricted-content-breaker-cards\">\n<div class=\"slider-container\" aria-label=\"Subscription plan toggle\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<button type=\"button\" class=\"individual\" aria-pressed=\"false\">Individual plans<\/button><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<button type=\"button\" class=\"group\" aria-pressed=\"false\">Group plans<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\">View All Plans<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"restricted-message-breaker\">\n<div class=\"restricted-content-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"restricted-content-message\">\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\">Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was relaxing and invigorating because that oh-too-familiar routine of meetings, deadlines, and the like has returned with a vengeance. You knew this would happen, yes? To cope, we are relying, as always, on cups of stimulation. Our choice today is tiramisu&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2202,65,5120,5119,581,115],"class_list":["post-3151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-coverage","tag-medicaid","tag-obesitydrug","tag-opting","tag-pharmalittle","tag-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}