Dive Brief:
- As employers grapple with worker demand for GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, 1 in 5 employers recommend employees use their FSA, HSA or integrated HRA to acquire them, according to new research from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
- While most employers don’t cover GLP-1s for weight loss, many try to support workers in other ways, said Carey Wooton, associate vice president of education at the International Foundation; nearly three-quarters provide disease management and case management, more than 6 in 10 offer nutritional counseling, and a similar share cover bariatric surgery.
- Cost remains a major impediment to coverage. GLP-1s for weight loss represented 11.4% of annual claims for corporations in 2025, up from 6.9% in 2023, the report found.
Dive Insight:
Only 36% of employers cover GLP-1s for weight loss, per the report, and just 9% of those that don’t provide coverage are considering it.
Despite limited coverage, U.S. adult use of the drugs for weight loss is at an all-time high, new Gallup research shows. Eleven percent of the 5,065 adults surveyed in May and June said they take GLP-1 medications to lose weight, nearly quadruple the share who said so only two years earlier. In all, 15% said they’ve used the drugs for weight loss at some point, up nine percentage points.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy, the first GLP-1 drug for weight loss, in 2021 and has since authorized others.
Meanwhile, the adult obesity rate in the U.S. has fallen to 36.4% in 2026, down from a record high of 39.9% in 2022, “a statistically meaningful decline that continues to inversely track with increased usage of GLP-1 medicine nationally,” Gallup found.
At the same time, the share of U.S. adults diagnosed with diabetes has remained relatively stable since 2023 “after 15 years of slowly rising rates concurring with rising obesity.”
Workers’ continued GLP-1 use can reduce employers’ healthcare costs, a January report from risk consultation firm Aon showed. Using data from more than 50 million people, including 192,000 GLP-1 users, for more than two years, medical cost growth was three percentage points lower over 18 months for those using GLP-1s for weight loss.
