ArcaMax

Americans are going to get a little healthier.

President Trump cut deals with the drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to increase access to obesity drugs in a major benefit to American public health.

The agreements are a win-win-win -- good for consumers, good for the companies and good for Trump.

One of the most irrational superstitions of our time is that Big Pharma, which has long been routinely delivering near-miraculous therapeutics to extend and improve our lives, is a public enemy. Its latest breakthrough is a class of so-called GLP-1 drugs that make it easier to lose weight, and to avoid associated serious health problems, from Type 2 diabetes to heart disease.

The basic dynamic of the Trump deals is that the companies will, through lower prices, expand their market share, thus generating more revenue. The companies also get tariff relief and expedited review for select drugs.

Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the MAHA leader with a paranoid streak about modern medical advances, has been hostile to GLP-1 drugs, the most famous of which is Ozempic, sold by Novo Nordisk.

If everyone could do as many pushups and pullups as the hyper-fit 71-year-old Kennedy, perhaps we could turn our back on GLP-1s.

Certainly, RFK Jr. is correct that Americans should eat better and work out more. But our body mass index has been increasing for about 150 years, as we've made calories cheaper and more abundant over time. As it happens, the things that we like to eat or drink that are bad for us -- fast food, soda, chips, cookies -- are cheap, convenient and taste good.

Even if we manage to convince people that they should eat more fruit, vegetables and legumes, while taking a Peloton class every day, not everyone is going to do it as a matter of lifestyle constraints, individual preference or simple lack of willpower.

There's also the fact that once you put on weight, physiological changes make it more difficult to shed it.

About 40% of Americans are obese. Wouldn't it be great for them -- and for American society at large, which spends roughly $170 billion a year on obesity-related medical costs -- if there were a safe, relatively convenient way for them to slim down?

Lo and behold, here it is. The GLP-1s started out as a treatment for diabetes and have exploded in popularity as weight-loss drugs.

Trump's reflex to make it easier for people to obtain Ozempic and the like -- while, not incidentally, boosting his reputation as the nation's foremost dealmaker -- is the correct one. Drug pricing is complicated, but by expanding the sale of the drugs direct to consumers, the companies can reduce prices. Meanwhile, Medicare will do more to cover the drugs, also bringing down their cost.

According to Gallup, about 12% of Americans report having used a GLP-1 drug at some point for weight loss, a stunning increase from about 6% in early 2024. Not coincidentally, Gallup is also now showing a slight dip in obesity. From 2008 -- when the polling organization regularly began asking about weight -- to 2022, the percentage of obese Americans increased by 14 percentage points, to nearly 40%.

Where any number of fashionable diets and continual government exhortations for more physical exertion have failed (before RFK Jr., Michelle Obama was urging, "Let's Move!"), drugs to slow digestion and reduce the urge to eat are working.

The percentage of Americans using GLP-1s will inevitably keep growing, especially if prices continue to go down, if more oral GLP-1s come online in addition to injectables, and if other medical benefits of the drugs emerge. GLP-1s easily could match the saturation level of statins, the cholesterol-reducing drugs.

By all means, we should all eat more arugula. Until then, we have found a pharmaceutical path to alleviating an ongoing health crisis. President Trump and the drug companies are to be congratulated for their creative cooperation to make it available to more Americans.

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(Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry)

(c) 2025 by King Features Syndicate