Weight Loss Drugs Can Save Billions, Not Just Millions

WASHINGTON - EntSun -- The New York Times believed it was important enough to take an entire article to announce that Weight-Loss Drugs Could Save U.S. Airlines $580 Million Per Year (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/travel/airli...).  CNBC went further, claiming that Airlines to save BIG MONEY on fuel as new weight loss pills gain popularity (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/airlines-to-sav...) [emphasis added].

More specifically, according to a CNBC report (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/airlines-to-sav...), a 10% reduction in average passenger weight could lead to a 2% decrease in total aircraft weight, resulting in fuel cost savings of up to 1.5%.

But these articles, like virtually all of the major media reports, failed to put it in context by reminding readers that weight loss drugs can save far more in health care costs - many billions and not just millions - and even save the ACA subsidies still at issue, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whose actions slashed smoking enough to save taxpayers many billions of dollars.

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According to a recent well documented study (https://www.jmcp.org/doi/10.18553/jmcp.2025.25051), 100 million American adults are obese, and their obesity imposes over $260 billion in unnecessary and therefore avoidable medical expenses each year.

Another study (https://www.fightchronicdisease.org/post/america-has-both-an-obesity-and-health-care-cost-problem) showed that if weight loss drugs helped each obese American to reduce their BMI by only a very modest 5%, the cumulative effect would save $68.1 billion in private health insurance spending annually, and $21.7 billion in Medicare.

More to the point, a 10% BMI reduction - the figure used to calculate the "Big Savings" for airlines - would save $128.3 billion in private insurance, and $41.6 billion in Medicare.

To put this in context, the U.S. suffered a major government shutdown over funding ACA subsidies ("Obamacare subsidies" or "enhanced premium tax credits") in an amount estimated to cost taxpayers ~$23–30 billion annually; so a 5% BMI reduction, just among the obese, would have covered most of that cost, and 10% BMI reduction would easily exceed that amount the total amount of the subsidies.

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In addition, just over 30% of Americans are considered (https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/he...) overweight but not obese.  The excess annual medical costs attributable to overweight (but not obesity) among U.S. adults are estimated (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10...) at $50 billion (in 2019 dollars). So if any significant portion of this group also used drugs to lose even a small percent of their weight, the additional savings would likewise be enormous.

So rather than opining about savings in airline fuel costs, the media, members of Congress, and the taxpayers who now pay so much of these unnecessary medical and other costs should be considering how to encourage more Americans to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, with or without drugs, argues Banzhaf.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf