Employers that exclude GLP-1s point staff to a website and a pretax account

The Business of Health Care Oct 12, 2026• By JOHN SAMARAS Most employers still won’t cover GLP-1s for weight loss, and some of them now tell the employee where to buy them without the plan. The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ 2026 survey, published in July, found that 60 percent of employers cover the drugs for diabetes only and 36 percent for both diabetes and weight loss. Among the employers that exclude weight loss, 27 percent steer employees to a direct-to-consumer platform and 21 percent to their FSA, HSA or integrated HRA. The same survey shows why. For its respondents, GLP-1s went from 6.9 percent of annual claims in 2023 to 11.4 percent in 2026. In a Business Group on Health survey reported by Reuters in June, 10 percent of large employers that cover them plan to drop them in 2027. Cigna stopped covering them for its own employees in July. What the employee walks into I record the published cash price of every US GLP-1 telehealth program every Monday, and this is the market those employees are sent to. At the maintenance dose, Novo Nordisk sells its Wegovy pen direct for $349 a month and its Wegovy pill for $299. The pill’s $149 price covers only the sta...