Medicare will offer Wegobee coverage to patients at high risk for heart attack, stroke and other serious cardiovascular disease, an agency spokesperson announced Thursday.

Experts say the decision could give millions of patients access to a popular but expensive weight-loss drug.

Medicare, which currently provides health insurance to more than 65 million people in the United States, has been prohibited from paying for weight loss drugs for years.

But earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration expanded approval for Wegovy, saying it can be prescribed to people who are overweight or obese to reduce their risk of heart disease.

The change will prompt the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consider coverage because reducing the risk of heart disease is a medically accepted use under federal law, a spokesperson said. It is said that it became.

A spokesperson said Medicare still won’t cover Wegobee if it’s used solely for weight management.

Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income people, would also be required to cover Wegobee to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill National Institute for Global Health Law, said Medicare providing coverage for Wegobee is “transformative.”

But doing so could jeopardize Medicare’s “financial stability,” Gostin said. The drug’s list price is about $1,200 per month, and many patients will likely want a prescription.

A national poll on healthy aging conducted by the University of Michigan in December found that about 3 in 4 seniors think Medicare should cover weight loss drugs.

A Congressional Budget Office blog post last October said that if Medicare covered weight loss drugs such as Wigovy, the net cost of the program “would be significant over the next decade.”

“This could be a slippery slope where Medicare ends up paying for drugs used for weight loss purposes,” Gostin said. “If that happens, Medicare will go bankrupt and there will be a taxpayer revolt.”

Juliet Cubansky, deputy director of the Medicare Policy Program at KFF, a nonpartisan group that studies health policy issues, said Medicare doesn’t cover the drug solely for weight loss, but it does help people with heart disease. Many said they were overweight or obese.

“Medicare patients with both conditions may qualify for this drug because of its heart health benefits,” Cubansky said. “This is a potentially big problem given the huge demand for this drug even though many insurance companies don’t cover it.”

The drug is covered by Medicare Part D, which covers the cost of drugs people take at home, a spokesperson said.

It’s unclear how private insurers that offer supplemental Part D coverage will respond, Cubansky said, adding that plans include the possibility of adding new drugs to the list of covered drugs in the middle of this year. He pointed out that there is. The development plan for this drug may not want to be a must-win. ”