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President Donald Trump’s administration has decided not to cover expensive, high-demand obesity treatments under the federal government’s Medicare program.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said late Friday that it would not cover the medications under Medicare’s Part D prescription drug coverage. Medicare covers health care expenses mainly for people age 65 and older.Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, proposed a rule in late November after Trump won reelection that would have extended coverage of drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy. The rule was not expected to be finalized until Trump took office.Trump returned to office in January. The Senate confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday.CMS did not offer an explanation Friday for its decision, and federal spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been an outspoken opponent of the injectable drugs, which have exploded in popularity due to the potentially life-changing weight loss that some patients experience.Polls show Americans favor having Medicaid and Medicare cover the costs. But many insurers, employers and other bill payers have been reluctant to pay for the drugs, which can be used by a wide swath of the population and can cost hundreds of dollars a month.Biden’s proposal was expensive: It would have included coverage for all state- and federally funded Medicaid programs for people with low incomes, costing taxpayers as much as $35 billion over next decade.Proponents of the coverage have argued that treating obesity can actually reduce longer-term costs by cutting down on heart attacks and other expensive health complications that can arise from the disease.The benefits consultant Mercer has said that 44% of U.S. companies with 500 or more employees covered obesity drugs last year.Medicare does pay for drugs like Wegovy for patients who have heart disease and need to reduce their risk of future heart attacks, strokes and other serious problems. The federal program also covers versions of the drugs that treat diabetes.More than a dozen state Medicaid programs already cover the drugs for obesity. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer
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E-Commerce
Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.“As long as I’ve been aliveand I’m 52this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant in downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital built around the swollen Kentucky River.“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to crest above 49 feet Monday to a record-setting level, said Frankfort Mayor Layne Wilkerson. The city’s flood wall system is designed to withstand 51 feet of water.For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.“This flooding is an act of God,” said Kevin Gordon, a front desk clerk at the Ashbrook Hotel in downtown Frankfort. The hotel was offering discounted stays to affected locals. Storms leaving devastating impact The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago. Why so much nasty weather? Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansasmaking it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows, and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.“I grabbed all my stuff and came here,” said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications: “I don’t leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed.”For others, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon. Izaguirre reported from New York. Kruesi reported from Nashville. Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report. Jon Cherry, Kimberlee Kruesi and Anthony Izaguirre, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Sending children back to school in new sneakers, jeans, and T-shirts is likely to cost U.S. families significantly more this fall if the bespoke tariffs President Donald Trump put on leading exporters take effect as planned, American industry groups warn.About 97% of the clothes and shoes purchased in the U.S. are imported, predominantly from Asia, the American Apparel & Footwear Association said, citing its most recent data. Walmart, Gap Inc., Lululemon, and Nike are a few of the companies that have a majority of their clothing made in Asian countries.Those same garment-making hubs took a big hit under the president’s plan to punish individual countries for trade imbalances. For all Chinese goods, that meant tariffs of at least 54%. He set the import tax rates for Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia at 46% and 49%, and products from Bangladesh and Indonesia at 37% and 32%.Working with foreign factories has kept labor costs down for U.S. companies in the fashion trade, but neither they nor their overseas suppliers are likely to absorb new costs that high. India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka also got slapped with high tariffs so aren’t immediate sourcing alternatives.“If these tariffs are allowed to persist, ultimately it’s going to make its way to the consumer,” said Steve Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association.Another trade group, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, provided estimates of the price increases that could be in store for shoes, noting 99% of the pairs sold in the U.S. are imports. Work boots made in China that now retail for $77 would go up to $115, while customers would pay $220 for running shoes made in Vietnam currently priced at $155, the group said.FDRA President Matt Priest predicted lower-income families and the places they shop would feel the impact most. He said a pair of Chinese-made children’s shoes that cost $26 today will likely carry a $41 price tag by the back-to-school shopping season, according to his group’s calculations. Preparing for a moving target The tariffs on the top producers of not only finished fashion but many of the materials used to make footwear and apparel shocked U.S. retailers and brands. Before Trump’s first term, U.S. companies had started to diversify away from China in response to trade tensions as well as human rights and environmental concerns.They accelerated the pace when he ordered tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, shifting more production to other countries in Asia. Lululemon said in its latest annual filing that 40% of its sportswear last year was manufactured in Vietnam, 17% in Cambodia, 11% in Sri Lanka, 11% in Indonesia, and 7% in Bangladesh.Nike, Levi-Strauss, Ralph Lauren, Gap. Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch, and VF Corporation, which owns Vans, The North Face, and Timberland, also reported a greatly reduced reliance on garment-makers and suppliers in China.Shoe brand Steve Madden said in November it would reduce imports from China by as much as 45% this year due to Trump’s campaign pledge to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese products. The brand said it already had spent several years developing a factory network in Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil.Industry experts say reviving the American garment industry would be hugely expensive and take years if it were feasible. The number of people working in apparel manufacturing in January 2015 stood at 139,000 and had dwindled to 85,000 by January of this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sri Lanka employs four times as many despite having a population less than one-seventh the size of the U.S.Along with lacking a skilled and willing workforce, the U.S. does not have domestic sources for the more than 70 materials that go into making a typical shoe, the Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America said in written comments to Trump’s trade representative.Shoe companies would need to find or set up factories to make cotton laces, eyelets, textile uppers, and other components to make finished footwear in the U.S. on a large scale, the group wrote.“These materials simply do not exist here, and many of these materials have never existed in the U.S,” the organization said. Price increases may come as a shock The expected barrage of apparel price increases would follow three decades of stability. Clothes cost U.S. consumers essentially the same in 2024 as they did in 1994, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.Economists and industry analysts have attributed the trend to free trade agreements, offshoring to foreign countries where workers are paid much less and heated competition for shoppers among discount retailers and fast-fashion brands like H&M, Zara and Forever 21.But customers unaccustomed to inflation in the apparel sector and coming off several years of steep rise in the costs of groceries and housing may be extra sensitive to any big jumps in clothing prices. Priest, of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said he has observed shoppers pulling back on buying shoes since Trump’s return to the White House.“They’re nervous,” he said. “They’ve obviously been playing the long game as it relates to inflation for a number of years now. And they just don’t have the endurance to absorb higher prices, particularly as they’re inflicted by the U.S. government.” Winners and losers in a garment trade war According to a report by British bank Barclays published Friday, the winners in the tariff wars are retailers that have at least one of these attributes: big negotiating power with their suppliers, a strong brand name and limited sourcing in Asia.In clothing and footwear, that includes off-price retailers Burlington, Ross Stores Inc. and TJX Companies, which operates T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, as well as Ralph Lauren and Dick’s Sporting Goods, according to the report.The companies in for a tougher time are those with limited negotiating power, limited pricing power and high product exposure in Asia, a list including Gap Inc., Urban Outfitters and American Eagle Outfitters, according to the report.Secondhand clothing resale site ThredUp cheered a related action Trump took with his latest round of tariffs: eliminating a widely used tax exemption that has allowed millions of low-cost goods most of them originating in China to enter the U.S. every day duty-free.“This policy change will increase the cost of cheaply produced, disposable clothing imported from China, directly impacting the business model that fuels overproduction and environmental degradation,” ThredUp said.Several industry analysts and economists said they think tariffs will end up being a consumer sales tax that widens the yawning gap between America’s wealthiest residents and those in the middle and lower end of the incme spectrum.“So where will the U.S. be buying its apparel now that the tariff rates on Bangladesh, Vietnam and China are astronomical?” Mary E. Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said of the schedule set to take effect Wednesday. “Will the new ‘Golden Age’ involve knitting our own knickers as well as snapping together our cellphones?” Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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