GLP-1 prescriptions are the single biggest driver of employer health costs

Employers went into 2025 with GLP-1 prescriptions named the single biggest driver of their health costs, adding a full 1% to total premium expense, on data from the benefits consultancy Aon. Zepbound, Eli Lilly's obesity injection, is the one analysts expect to take over the category.

Overall employer coverage was projected to rise 9% and pass $16,000 per employee, against a 6.4% increase the year before, all of it measured before any cost-saving strategy gets applied. Market researchers at GlobalData argued Zepbound outperformed the incumbent GLP-1 in the SURMOUNT-5 head-to-head, roughly 20.2% of body weight against 13.7%.

For a household, the premium line is not the number that bites. List price runs $1,086.37 per fill, commercial drug insurance coverage can bring that down to as low as $25 for a one or three month supply, a commercial plan that excludes the drug leaves as low as $650, and paying cash means roughly $400 to more than $1,000 a month depending on dose.

Washington's proposed rule requiring Medicare to cover weight-loss medicines would not take effect until January 1, 2026. Until then the same injection is a rounding error or a car payment, depending on which plan a person happens to have.

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