Well, folks, you're watching the future of health care get determined in real time: Anti-obesity drug manufacturers publicly agreed yesterday to essentially trade higher prices for more patients.

Why it matters: Without knowing exactly how the White House's deal with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly will shake out, it may end up being the case that everyone involved is a winner — an extremely rare phenomenon in health policy.

• The federal government will supposedly pay around the same amount as it does now for GLP-1s.
• Companies will receive about the same amount of money from the federal government while expanding their overall patient base.
• More people with obesity and related health conditions will be able to access remarkably effective treatments.

What they're saying: "It's hard to overstate the impact of this day. It's really a turning point in the fight against chronic disease and a landmark achievement for President Trump and Secretary [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], as well as of course our company," Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said at yesterday's Oval Office press conference announcing the deal.

Yes, but: It's unknowable at this point how much of a winner this new arrangement is for patients and taxpayers, largely because of the opacity of the U.S. drug market and partially because of foggy details about the deal.

• A key question that we'll never answer is how different the outcome of this deal will be from what would have happened anyway thanks to an influx of competition within the sector and the looming specter of Novo Nordisk's GLP-1s being subject to negotiated prices in Medicare.
• "Is this a really big policy change, or is this a policy change that reflects ongoing policy changes in a competitive market? And that I don't have a great answer to," said Ben Ippolito of the American Enterprise Institute.

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This is not a simple deal. But here are some of the big highlights:

• Medicare beneficiaries will pay $50 out of pocket for the companies' GLP-1s, whether they're using them to treat diabetes or weight loss.
• Lilly and Novo will sell their GLP-1 products to Medicare for $245, and state Medicaid programs will also have access to that price.
• The companies have also agreed to offer lower cash-pay prices that will be available through TrumpRx, the administration's direct-to-consumer self-pay platform it plans to launch.

By the numbers: Novo's products will be available for $350 per month via TrumpRx, according to the White House, a discount from their current cash-pay price of $499.

• The White House said Lilly's drugs will be offered at an average of $346 a month on TrumpRx.
• In its statement, Lilly said the lowest dose of Zepbound — its GLP-1 for weight loss — will be available at the lowest dose at $299, with additional doses costing up to $449 — a $50 discount on current prices.

The intrigue: The White House also said that any future GLP-1s made by the companies that are approved for oral administration will be priced starting at $150 per month on TrumpRx — an unusual preview of the price of drugs not yet on the market.

• Lilly said that the lowest dose of its oral candidate will be available at $149, and additional doses at up to $399.

In exchange for these pricing concessions, Medicare will offer coverage of weight loss drugs for millions of seniors. But the expansion still does not cover everyone who's eligible for the drug according to the FDA.

• Expanding Medicare coverage has been written off in the past, at least by some, as being prohibitively expensive.

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Though the deal doesn't specifically apply to commercial insurance, lots of patients directly purchase GLP-1s themselves since many insurers still don't cover them.

• A drug market outside of insurance complications can be a good thing, Ippolito argued, as it would avoid administrative costs from insurers and PBMs while encouraging direct competition on price.
• That will make different weight loss drug manufacturers compete solely on price, especially as more come to market.

By the numbers: Lilly's Dave Ricks told reporters that the new Medicare price for its diabetes drugs is a "material discount" and somewhere between a 20% and 35% discount from today's net price.

• Medicare doesn't cover weight loss drugs, so there is no current price for those.
• Novo said in its announcement of the deal that it expects a "direct, negative low single-digit impact on global sales growth in 2026," the year the deal is expected to be implemented.

Our thought bubble: Significantly reducing the number of Americans with obesity would meaningfully improve public health at the population level and should eventually result in lower overall health spending.

• But still, only a portion of Medicare beneficiaries who stand to benefit from weight loss drugs will be newly eligible for coverage under the terms of the deal.
• And while the cash pay prices will be less than they are today, a couple hundred dollars a dose is still prohibitively expensive for many Americans.

The bottom line: "I wouldn't call it earth shattering, but it may be meaningful," Ippolito said.