Trump Announces $50 Monthly Cost for Weight-Loss Drugs for Seniors on Medicare

GLP-1 medications—glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists—have surged in popularity in recent years, but their list prices have put them out of reach for millions of Americans.

Rudy Blalock

Published: 5/1/2026, 11:32:49 PM EDT

Trump Announces $50 Monthly Cost for Weight-Loss Drugs for Seniors on Medicare — A box of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk at a pharmacy in London on March 8, 2024. (Hollie Adams/Reuters)

Standing before a crowd of seniors at The Villages in Florida on May 1, President Donald Trump made a statement that sent applause rolling through the room: starting July 1, Americans on Medicare will be able to get popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound for just $50 a month.

"If it was $1,300, now it's $50," Trump told the crowd at the White House event titled "President Trump Participates in an Event with Seniors." "And the $1,300 doesn't cover a whole month. So it's really even more than that. So it's now down to $50."

The announcement puts a presidential spotlight on a program that was quietly set in motion weeks earlier by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—a temporary initiative called the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge, which is designed to give Medicare beneficiaries access to a class of drugs known as GLP-1s that are used to treat both obesity and diabetes.

GLP-1 medications—glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists—have surged in popularity in recent years, but their list prices have put them out of reach for millions of Americans. Medicare has generally not covered these drugs when prescribed for weight loss, leaving a large gap for seniors who could benefit from them.

The Bridge program is set to run from July 1, 2026 through to Dec. 31, 2027, according to CMS. It operates outside of standard Part D prescription drug coverage and is meant to allow people to access treatment while longer-term coverage solutions are developed, according to the Obesity Action Coalition, a U.S. obesity patient advocacy nonprofit.

That longer-term solution—a program called the BALANCE Model, short for Better Approaches to Lifestyle and Nutrition for Comprehensive hEalth—had been expected to launch in January 2027. But CMS announced in late April that the BALANCE Model rollout would not proceed as planned, citing the need for additional time to evaluate the program's structure. In the meantime, CMS extended the Bridge program through the end of 2027 to fill the gap.

The BALANCE Model was designed as a voluntary program in which CMS would negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers on behalf of Medicare Part D plans and state Medicaid agencies. GLP-1 drug manufacturers had agreed to a net price of $245—a major reduction from prevailing list prices. Even so, insurance plans reportedly showed lower than expect interest in participating, with enrolment falling short of targeted levels, Clinical Advisor, a medical news site for clinicians, said in a recent announcement.

According to the Obesity Action Coalition, details about enrolment and the approval process are still being finalized, with more information expected from CMS in the coming months.

The advocacy group called the program "a meaningful step toward improving access to obesity care," while cautioning that it "will work differently than typical Medicare prescription coverage."

The drugs Trump named—Ozempic, Zepbound, and Wegovy—have become household names in the national conversation about weight loss, and making them accessible at $50 a month marks a major shift for seniors who have been paying hundreds or thousands of dollars out of pocket.