Expanding Medicare Access to Weight Loss Medications

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, Sunday morning, fourth of July weekend with us today is doctor Mason Pimsler, and he is very concerned about cancer in our environment. He is very concerned about so many things, weight loss and he deals with the in the bronx where a lot of needy people are there.

0:22 And doctor Pimsler, can you give us an update well on your concerns on this this well, fourth of July, two hundred and fifty year anniversary of our country.

0:33 Speaker 2 Good morning, John to you.

0:34 Speaker 3 First of all, President Trump, one of our great developers in our country, really built a bridge. This time. He gave the American public a real birthday gift for the two hundred and fiftieth birthday. The way loss drugs that everyone is talking about was prohibited to be covered under Medicare. Yet paper under Medicaid can get drugs. But Medicare people sixty five and older, and some people have

1:03 Medicare that are disabled that are not sixty five, who put their blood, sweat and tears into this country could not get these weight loss drugs. It took President Trump to build a bridge. And that’s the name of the program, the bridge, and it’s he is covering for people sixty five and older for the first time. Like I said,

1:25 these weight loss drugs that help people prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleeping issues because if you’re too heavy, your abdom impresses on your diaphragm and makes it hard to sleep at night and you wake up you don’t get a good night’s sleep.

1:42 Speaker 2 So these drugs that were.

1:44 Speaker 3 Costly will now just cost seniors fifty dollars when they were costing one thousand dollars and they went down to four hundred, five hundred fifty dollars. Never has this been So this is terrific Birthday. Get to the American public.

1:58 Speaker 1 That instead of a thousand, instead of four hundred.

2:03 Speaker 3 Yes, and four hundred if you’re lucky, John, it’s more in the five hundred thousand I provide free to people sometimes when I have it, you know, but it’s very hard to get.

2:16 Speaker 2 And I have a lot.

2:17 Speaker 3 Of people people that are sixty five and older in their seventies that are still pre.

2:22 Speaker 2 Diabetics, they’re obese, there.

2:26 Speaker 3 Have have had heart attacks and they could benefit from these drugs and I couldn’t do it. Don’t know what I could do was the company would give me as a representative like an ambassador for the company. They would give me the drug and I’d give a free to people.

2:40 But that doesn’t cover enough. So what Trump did was he built another taj Mahal like he did in Atlantic City. This bridge is going to help so many john so many. It’s incredible.

2:52 Speaker 1 That is wonderful news to people. Yeah, what are the concerns you had?

2:59 Speaker 3 Well, I do as I have concerns that we spoke about with cancer. I go through this every single day. That again with seniors because I’m an internal medicine specialist, but I’m also a fellowship trained geriatrician that specializes in the senior population.

3:15 Speaker 2 So I don’t stop.

3:17 Speaker 3 Like, for instance, their majority of doctors stopped cancer screening at seventy five mimmographies colon cancer prostate seventy to seventy five. That’s a big concern. You ask a concern, so I keep going. I know that they’ll say the guideline stop at seventy five unless someone they think is going to live longer than ten years at seventy five. But we

3:43 don’t know, so I’m not going to take that away. My own mother, her doctor messed up and I diagnosed breast cancer at eighty two and she’s doing perfect. So that’s a big thing. You can’t stop. I want to get that again.

3:58 Speaker 1 In other words, the guidelines to Medicare and Medicaid at the age of seventy five if you get cancer, tough luck.

4:07 Speaker 3 It’s not the Medicare guid it’s the United States Preventive Task Force. And that’s what the doctors look and they say, right, tough luck that you know, you’re seventy five. Now, no more colonoscopy. I had a patient come in two weekends ago.

4:22 She’s seventy nine. She has a colon cancer invasive. Luckily they we found it and now she had it surgically removed on the twenty ninth of June and she’s doing very well.

4:34 Speaker 2 She’s recovering. But if the doctor would have.

4:36 Speaker 3 Done the colonoscopy, she would have been much more ahead of the game. So yes, it’s something called the United States Preventive Task Force that gives these recommendations. And the doctors, though, really should not be following it. You know, because you’re cutting, you’re deciding to cut a person’s life possibly shorter.

4:57 Speaker 2 And I see it all the time, so it’s not unusual.

5:00 Speaker 1 And if you’re poor and they know that. I mean, I am shocked, shocked.

5:08 Speaker 3 Yeah, I if you’re poor and they say, hey, you know, you’re seventy five or you’re seventy no more prostate cancer screaming, and then you’ve developed a proseta cancer like Biden at seventy eight, seventy nine, you know you won’t be fortunate enough to have had that PSA test, the prostate specific antigens cancer screening test, simple blood tests, simple blood tests,

5:33 not expensive, so it’s not the horrible agreed, agreed, it gets my blood boiling. I always advocate for the patient about that that don’t stop your mammogram, don’t stop your you know, and even wealthy people, I am shocked that they’re stuff. You know, the doctor’s are okay, seventy five, that’s it. I had a friend called me the other day.

5:57 He’s pretty well off, his mother and and you know, it’s ridiculous. So I don’t so colon cancer screening, procely cancer screening, mammogram. Cervical case.

6:08 Speaker 3 Do not stop when they tell you at the seventy five, because now people are living into their hundreds.

6:14 Speaker 2 So do not stop.

6:16 Speaker 1 Doctor Mason Primsler, thank you so much, for coming on and telling the American people the truth. Maybe somebody will hear it and make it and make some changes.

6:27 Speaker 2 And thank President Trump for the birthday gift.

6:29 Speaker 1 Chummy. Thank you.

6:31 Speaker 2 I will God bless you in your family.