BATON ROUGE – The Senate Health and Welfare Committee debated a bill that would require Medicaid to cover FDA-approved weight-loss medications for its recipients.

Roughly 145,000 Medicaid adults in the state would qualify for coverage of the weight-loss medicines, according to the Louisiana Department of Health Medicaid Director Seth Gold.

Senate Bill 433, proposed by Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, was amended Wednesday and will be held to be revisited by the full committee.

Louisiana has a serious obesity problem, with approximately 40% of adults having a body mass index of 30 or higher, according to America’s Health Rankings from the United Health Foundation.

The state ranks third in the country in adult obesity and second in the country in childhood obesity.

LDH estimates that the total spending to cover these medications would be around $189 million for the first half of the fiscal year, a span covering the bill’s possible implementation on Jan. 1, 2027, through the next six months. The price tag for the following full fiscal year was estimated to be $296 million.

Federal spending would defray a huge portion of these estimated expenses, Gold said.

They estimate that about $35 million from the state general fund and $153 million in federal spending would cover the first fiscal year. For the second fiscal year, they estimate that about $55 million from the state general fund and $240 million in federal spending would cover it.

The addition of rebates would also help to bring these numbers down, Gold adds. However, even with the aid, the state would still face a significant cost.

While it may be costly, some members agreed that the issue should not be ignored.

“We have to find a way to pay for this,” said Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria. “I believe (this) is going to make a huge change over the state of Louisiana for the good. … We have to get serious about this if we’re going to make change.”

Luneau said using Medicaid to help recipients pay for weight-loss medication could help cut down cardiovascular issues such as strokes and heart attacks. He also said this could help reduce the occurrence of diabetes, which affects about 569,000 adults in Louisiana, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Louisiana currently pays about $2.1 billion a year for Medicaid to treat adults and children with obesity, according to Dr. Katie Queen, a pediatrician who specializes in obesity and weight- management nutrition.

The same report Queen used from Louisiana Medicaid indicated it would have cost the state $74 million to cover these weight-loss medications in 2023. Since then, Queen has heard that these costs have come down even more.

“Now we’re talking about less than $74 million, maybe $55 million, maybe even down to $11 million,” Queen said. “When you compare that to the cost of other drugs, that is not that much.”

Queen described the bill as an investment, implying that covering the costs of weight-loss medications would bring down the money spent to treat weight-related health issues because more individuals would become healthier.

The bill would cut overall costs by limiting the eligibility age to 18. However, Queen said she was concerned about excluding coverage for young people between 12 and 17 because obesity plagues this age group as much as it does for adults.

“These medications are FDA-approved for ages 12 and up, and they will go younger,” Queen said, referring to studies on the safety and effectiveness of the weight-loss drug for younger children.