Former NC GOP leader: State treasurer must reverse course on weight loss drugs | Opinion

When it comes to meddling in medical markets and denying life-saving drugs to citizens with chronic diseases, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has no equal this side of Europe, or maybe Canada. Surprisingly, though, North Carolina’s Republican state Treasurer, Dale Folwell, is now flirting with government control of private enterprise.

In Washington, D.C. , Sanders wants the federal government to set the prices companies can charge for drugs for diabetes and weight loss. As Sanders well knows, price controls lead to shortages and rationing, hurting consumers instead of helping them. To Sanders, big government always knows best.

In North Carolina, in an attempt to save money on government retiree health plans, Treasurer Folwell pushed the NC State Health Plan’s board of trustees to cut off the access of 25,000 state and local employees to weight-loss drugs that help them avoid heart attacks, strokes, cancer and other costly illnesses. In my view, that was shortsighted.

Yes, innovative weight-loss drugs and other medications tend to be relatively expensive at first. That’s because the companies that invent them have to recoup their long-term research and development investments, not just current production costs. But over time, prices drop.

Despite their being political opposites, and perhaps for different reasons, Sanders and Folwell both want to flex the power of government to fix drug prices. But private insurers and other parties already negotiate bulk prices with drug makers, often securing discounts of 50% or more. There’s no need for government bureaucrats to interfere with the free market.

It’s particularly unwise to get in the way of delivering weight-loss drugs to those who need them. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than two in five American adults are obese, and more than one in 10 has diabetes.

The point of health care isn’t merely to save money — it’s to promote good health and well-being. But looking at it financially, obesity costs the U.S. medical system about $150 billion a year. The state and federal governments pay a steep price for the hospital stays, doctor visits, and lost work days of overweight employees who need support, not shunning.

New obesity medications offered by several manufacturers provide incalculable benefits to overweight Americans who are at costly risk of heart disease, strokes, cancer and osteoarthritis.

In North Carolina, tens of thousands of state and local workers benefited from the FDA-approved medicines — conceivably gaining in work productivity, quality of life and longevity — until Folwell persuaded the State Health Plan’s board of directors to stop paying for them effective April 1.

Folwell would be well-advised to study the long-term savings of obesity medication. I wager that the benefits would far outweigh the costs. I don’t say this emotionally, and I don’t say it politically. I say it mathematically — and humanely.

Reducing obesity saves money, as well as suffering. It’s the right thing to do both morally and economically. Here’s hoping that Folwell bowls an easy strike by restoring access to obesity drugs for state and local government workers, and then rightly takes credit for it.

R. Lee Currie, Jr. is a Clayton, N.C. business executive and former director of the N.C. Republican Party.