Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

glp1digest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 640 posts

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#111

Post by silotis »

massung wrote: post #92
arn3n wrote: post #4

Obesity is highly correlated with other medical conditions, from cancer to diabetes to heart disease. I wonder if there is a point at which it is cheaper for health insurance companies to offer subsidized or even free GLP-1s to patients than pay out for other specialized medications. For example, my insurance covers flu shots in my community every year because it's presumably less expensive to pay for the shots compa…

I don’t know if your topic switch was intentional - if so, my apologies and this is just for people outside the US who don’t know… The article is about life insurance, which is very different from medical insurance. Medical insurance companies often already go out of their way to pay early to save in the long run (e.g. free preventative care, checkups, etc.). I can’t speak to GLP-1s, but it’s possible that right now…

> Medical insurance companies often already go out of their way to pay early to save in the long run

Literally LOLed when I read this. Health insurance companies might pay lip service to this and make some token gestures like free preventative care, but in my experience health insurance companies frequently shoot themselves in the foot by denying care that later ends up costing them even more when the patient's untreated condition worsens.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#112

Post by refulgentis »

linsomniac wrote: post #98
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #23

So... There's a miracle drug powerful enough to robustly lower people's all cause mortality, but since health insurance and life insurance are industries with vastly different time preferences, this is not a good thing for the life insurers because people just keep getting off the magic longevity drug and screwing up their predictions. Because, admittedly, it kind of sucks in the moment to be on. And I'm guessing jus…

>There's a miracle drug powerful enough to robustly lower people's all cause mortality Did I misread the article, my TL;DR of the article is that GLP-1 reduce the indicators or mortality without modifying the actual mortality (because most users return to normal indicators within about 2 years).

Subtly different: you read "most...return to normal...within 2 years", it says "When someone stops the medication, they'll [return to baseline]"

Then from there, I click through the 65% #, assuming they have a good study on 65% of people stop after a year. Nah, they don't. It's super complex but tl;dr: specific cohort, and somehow the # getting on it in year 2 is higher than the # of people who quit in year 1.

I have a weak to medium prior, after 10m evaluating, that the entire thing might be built on more sand than it admits.

Lot of little slants that create an absolute tone - ex. multiple payouts over the "lifetime" of a life insurance policy. (sure, it's technically possible)

Also there's no citation for the idea this mortality slippage happened because of GLP-1, and it's been out for...what...a year? Maybe two?

That's an awful lot of people who were about to die, saved in the nick of time by...losing weight? Again, possible, I'm sure it even happened in some cases.

Enough to skew mortality slippage from 5.3% to 15.3%?

I thought they were 98% accurate?

Wait...is the slippage graph net life increase slippage? Or any slippage?

Because it's very strange this explosion happened in exactly the year of a global pandemic that had sky-high mortality rates for older people.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#113

Post by toomuchtodo »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #53
ramoz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what sucks about being on the prescriptions?

I'm just reporting my cached knowledge of people saying they experienced some adverse side effects. Also injections are not fun, even though they are probably a lot less annoying than they look.

Once daily pills will very likely replace injections in the near future.

Eli Lilly will soon release key data on its weight loss pill orforglipron - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43465346 - March 2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orforglipron

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#114

Post by kbelder »

44520297 wrote: post #44
Sparkle-san wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why is obesity the only disease that taking medicine for is “cheating”? Which is more important: instilling your particular version of “discipline” into people, or saving billions in healthcare costs and millions of lives from suffering?

It's not. I'd put most addictions in that category. And instilling discipline in people is a good thing that benefits them in myriad ways.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#115

Post by kylecordes »

Seems like insurers should be rating based on your worst health markers, including weight, over the last N years rather than just a current point-in-time snapshot. Someone who somehow has no medical records over the last few years at all that would capture any of that data would be priced on the assumption the past was possibly worse than current.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#116

Post by gedy »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #53
ramoz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what sucks about being on the prescriptions?

I'm just reporting my cached knowledge of people saying they experienced some adverse side effects. Also injections are not fun, even though they are probably a lot less annoying than they look.

I've taken these and self injected, and it was surprising that I really felt nothing - no pain at all. I suppose because they recommend in stomach, and it's not in muscle, etc.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#117

Post by apwell23 »

romaaeterna wrote: post #16

The problem (not new with GLP-1s) is that people lose weight, get life insurance, and then regain. The biggest part of that equation is regain part. Most people quit GLP-1s because of costs. Let's fix that.

i have hard time believing ppl go through all that only to sign up for cheap life insurance.

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#118

Post by octo888 »

brokensegue wrote: post #67
almosthere wrote: post #25

so surreal reading comments... a month after non-stop threads about glp causing a billion issues, everyone is talking about how wonderful they are again. humanity

billion issues? i saw some reporting on rare cases of blindness. what else?

Pancreas issues and hair loss IIRC?

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#119

Post by apwell23 »

firesteelrain wrote: post #24

I was on Mounjaro for two months. I was also dieting and walking 10k steps a day. I lost 25 lb and my A1C went down to 5.0 from 5.7. All my cholesterol numbers were in range. I stopped taking it and lost 25 more. I haven’t regained the weight. People who gain it back did not learn the lesson and did not effectively change their habits. You need the discipline - and a good support system. But if you don’t have that an…

suprised your a1c was only 5.7 despite being obese .

Re: GLP-1s are breaking life insurance

#120

Post by nerevarthelame »

firesteelrain wrote: post #24

I was on Mounjaro for two months. I was also dieting and walking 10k steps a day. I lost 25 lb and my A1C went down to 5.0 from 5.7. All my cholesterol numbers were in range. I stopped taking it and lost 25 more. I haven’t regained the weight. People who gain it back did not learn the lesson and did not effectively change their habits. You need the discipline - and a good support system. But if you don’t have that an…

This is akin to saying a severely anxious person should be able to take an SSRI for a few months, learn how to change their thinking, and stay off antidepressants for the rest of their life. So simple. Must be their fault if they can't pull it off.

Perhaps that works for some people. I'm glad it seems to have worked for you. But the facts of the world we live in show that it doesn't work for most. "Learn the lesson and be disciplined!" is not effective advice.

Post reply on HN