Jul 17, 2026
Despite the hype behind them, GLP-1s have been expensive for everyday people to obtain. And CVS Health CEO David Joyner says that’s not going to change anytime soon.
“Everybody intuitively believes these medications create long-term health benefits, but the evidence hasn’t yet demonstrated that paying today’s prices generates enough downstream savings,” Joyner, who also oversees Aetna insurance, told the Washington Post in a recent interview. “The economics simply aren’t there yet.”
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Private insurance has largely refused to cover the drug for weight loss purposes, although a new GLP-1 Bridge Program allows Medicare users to purchase the drug for just $50 per month.
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That’s partially due to how expensive GLP-1s are: depending on what specific drug you’re using, you could pay anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars per month out of pocket without insurance. Right now, pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk produce the vast majority of GLP-1s — although other companies are in the process of developing their own.
“Eli Lilly has become an extraordinarily successful company — the first trillion-dollar health care company in the United States,” Joyner said. “They’re not going to lower prices until competition forces them to.”
Joyner did not immediately return Moneywise’s request for comment.
Private insurance is only incentivized to cover GLP-1s if they keep patients healthy long-term
Private health insurance is not required to cover medication that is solely being used for weight loss. Medicare is even prohibited from covering weight loss drugs — although the aforementioned GLP-1 Bridge Program is temporarily bypassing that rule.
That means that private insurance generally doesn’t cover weight loss drugs unless you can prove you’re using it to treat another medical condition. For example, many insurance plans cover GLP-1s for people living with Type 2 diabetes, even if they don’t cover them for others simply hoping to lose weight.
The fact is if health insurance plans aren’t required to spend money, they won’t. But the math changes if paying for GLP-1 use on a mass scale now keeps beneficiaries healthy in the future — thereby saving money on drugs and hospital stays GLP-1 users would incur if they were otherwise in poor health.
Of course, that assumes a patient will stay with that insurance provider long enough for it to reap the benefits of keeping the customer healthy. Healthcare insurance churn is not always avoidable for many Americans. Full-time workers generally don’t get to choose their health insurance — their employers do, and job tenure has been steadily dropping for the past 20 years.
As layoffs also become more commonplace, workers are stuck pinballing between different healthcare plans while trying to find secure employment. This doesn’t encourage insurance providers to invest in current beneficiaries’ health at current costs.
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GLP-1s are showing promising effects on all sorts of ailments — but the benefits might not stick around
Do GLP-1s create healthier patients? The science is still new, but right now, the answer looks like a definite maybe.
Early study results are promising. GLP-1 usage has been shown to be helpful in treating kidney, heart, and liver disease, sleep apnea, and even arthritis.
But scientists already know that users have to keep taking GLP-1s in order to continue benefiting from their weight loss benefits. A study from Penn medicine found that GLP-1 users that quit using the drug quickly regained the weight they lost — and struggled to re-lose that weight once they went back on the drug. GLP-1s burn both weight and fat. But when people quit them, they tend to only gain back fat, leaving them in worse shape than they were before taking the drug.
“Taking GLP-1s may be one of those decisions that people need to discuss and make with their doctor, knowing that taking the drug requires a long-term commitment,” says UPenn professor in dermatology Thomas H. Leung. “It may not be the best fit for people who struggle with taking medication daily or weekly.”
This could spell bad news for any prospects that insurance providers will cover the drug for weight loss, especially since over half of people who take GLP-1 for reasons other than Type 2 diabetes stop taking it after one year.
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Kit Pulliam is a DC-based financial journalist with over five years of experience writing, editing, and fact-checking financial content.
