Jeannette Simonton was a textbook candidate for the weight problems drug Wegovy when her physician prescribed it to her in February.

At 5 ft 2 inches and 228 kilos, she had a physique mass index of almost 42 — nicely above the cutoff U.S. regulators had authorized for eligibility for the remedy. She additionally had severe joint issues after a long time of struggling together with her weight.

However her insurance coverage refused to pay for the remedy, citing a blanket ban on masking weight-loss medicine, in line with a letter Ms. Simonton obtained in March from her advantages administrator.

Now, Ms. Simonton is suing the Washington State company that purchases medical health insurance for public staff like her. Her attorneys argue that the state’s well being plans are discriminating in opposition to Ms. Simonton — and others who, like her, are looking for weight-loss medicine — in violation of state regulation, which acknowledges weight problems as a sort of incapacity.

Ms. Simonton’s case is a flashpoint within the battle over whether or not medical health insurance ought to should cowl weight problems medicine. The problem for payers is that the drugs can be massively expensive in the event that they had been broadly coated in the US, the place greater than 100 million individuals are overweight.

The lawsuit is prone to be carefully watched as a check of whether or not well being plans can refuse to pay for weight problems medicine. Ms. Simonton is being represented by a Seattle regulation agency, Sirianni Youtz Spoonemore Hamburger, that has an extended observe document of difficult medical health insurance restrictions, together with these for expensive hepatitis C cures.

Wegovy and different appetite-suppressing medicine are in large demand as a result of they’re stunningly efficient in serving to sufferers drop extra pounds. However the scale of that demand would pose an unprecedented monetary burden for the employers and authorities applications that shoulder a lot of the prices of pharmaceuticals. Wegovy, Novo Nordisk’s high-dose model of its common drug Ozempic, has a sticker value of over $16,000 a yr.

Extra payers have just lately begun masking the weight problems drugs, inspired by analysis suggesting that the medicine could pay for themselves in the long term by bettering sufferers’ well being. However others say they merely can’t afford to cowl the drugs.

Ms. Simonton, 57, a nurse who’s nicely versed on the well being advantages of the medicine, mentioned she noticed the refusal to cowl her Wegovy as shortsighted.

“They’re being penny clever and pound silly,” she mentioned. “What is going to they be paying in 10, 15 years if I don’t proceed to lose the burden?”

The company Ms. Simonton is suing, the Washington State Well being Care Authority, declined to remark. Ms. Simonton will get her medical health insurance via the general public hospital the place she works. As a part of her compensation, her hospital pays premiums to the state, which the Well being Care Authority makes use of to pay for her well being plan. The company has authority over which medicine are coated.

Wegovy is in a category of injectable medicine often called GLP-1s, named after the pure hormone whose results they emulate. The medicine have been used for years to deal with Kind 2 diabetes however extra just lately have been acknowledged for his or her extraordinary energy to slash physique weight.

About 36 million folks with Kind 2 diabetes in the US — in addition to about 18 million who’re overweight however not diabetic — have entry to GLP-1s via their well being plans, in line with analysts on the funding financial institution Jefferies. That’s about 17 % of the nation’s insured folks.

Federal regulation prohibits Medicare from paying for medicine for weight reduction, a ban that persists largely due to the staggering prices. If Congress had been to overturn the ban, one projection from educational researchers estimates, two million Medicare beneficiaries — 10 % of older folks with weight problems — would take Wegovy. In that case, the federal government’s annual expenditure can be $27 billion, almost a fifth of the yearly spending for Medicare’s Half D program masking pharmaceuticals taken at house.

Employers and state medical health insurance applications for public staff face an analogous dilemma. In Arkansas, the place 40 % of individuals on the plan for state staff have weight problems, masking the medicine would value $83 million yearly. The Wisconsin program must give you a further $25 million yearly.

“Employers don’t immediately have a brand new pot of cash to pay for increased medical health insurance premiums,” mentioned Dr. Steven Pearson, president of the Institute for Medical and Financial Evaluation, which assesses the worth of medicines. “We’re speaking about huge adjustments to corporations’ skill to offer different advantages, wage will increase, new hires, they usually may have to show that into increased premiums for their very own staff.”

One other fear for employers is that they could not reap the financial savings of investing in weight-loss drugs. Averted coronary heart assaults and prevented hospital stays made potential by the medicine could not manifest in financial savings till years down the road, when a affected person has left that employer.

However advocates for sufferers with weight problems see stigma and bias at play when well being plans view weight-loss therapy as akin to pointless self-importance procedures.

Ms. Simonton, who lives in Ellensburg, Wash., has had weight problems for so long as she will keep in mind. At one level in her 40s, she weighed 424 kilos. After she underwent an operation to cut back the scale of her abdomen, her weight fluctuated for years above 250 kilos.

The load has taken a toll. With osteoarthritis so dangerous that the bones in her knees had been rubbing in opposition to each other, she has already had her proper knee changed and has surgical procedure for her left scheduled for subsequent month. “I questioned if I used to be going to have a nursing profession left,” she mentioned.

Final yr, she began taking Mounjaro, one other highly effective GLP-1 remedy, with most of her prices coated by the drug’s producer, Eli Lilly. When that help ran out, she paused therapy whereas her docs helped her search insurance coverage protection for the Novo Nordisk drug.

In February, annoyed by the shortage of progress, Ms. Simonton started paying out of pocket to acquire a model of the Novo Nordisk remedy from a compounding pharmacy.

Since she began taking GLP-1 medicine in September 2022, she has misplaced 76 kilos. She now weighs 191 kilos.

“My life has modified, in a tremendous means,” she mentioned. “It’s the primary time the place I’m not consistently serious about meals.”

However to cowl the out-of-pocket prices — almost $2,000 thus far — Ms. Simonton and her husband have decreased their spending on groceries and lower their retirement financial savings.

Ms. Simonton’s lawsuit, filed in state courtroom in Washington final month, is looking for to pressure her well being plan to pay for Wegovy going ahead, in addition to reimbursement from when she was denied protection. Her attorneys are looking for class-action standing on behalf of others like her who’re insured via plans for public and college employees in Washington State.

In 2019, Washington State’s Supreme Courtroom dominated that weight problems is “at all times” a protected incapacity below the state’s anti-discrimination regulation. Different courts exterior the state have dominated that weight problems isn’t normally protected.