Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, negotiate drug prices for insurers. But sometimes PBM parent companies also own the pharmacy they’re negotiating with.
People with private insurance are most likely to be able to get prescription weight loss drugs covered. Less than 10% of people who got semaglutide last year were on Medicaid.
!["The cost of actually manufacturing most of these drugs is very small, so [pharmaceutical companies are] making a huge profit on each drug that they sell," says Gerard Anderson, a professor in the department of health policy and management Johns Hopkins University.](https://img.apmcdn.org/dc32596ac07a65947ee26e68b14e8082603ce297/uncropped/83db56-2019-12-drugbill-webp2000.webp)
