Medicare’s temporary weight-loss drug plan may be hard to end

WASHINGTON — Weight loss drugs will be available to adults 65 and older in Medicare for the first time next month, thanks to a government program that’s supposed to be temporary. It may be difficult to end it.

Medicare is prohibited by law from paying for obesity drugs. The Trump administration is circumventing that law by making the drugs available via a demonstration program.

Initially, Medicare had hoped to push private Medicare insurers to voluntarily cover the drugs via a three-year program called BALANCE, which would have started following a short transitional period. But insurers balked, so the federal government is instead extending the transitional coverage program, called Bridge, until the end of next year.