ICYMI: Shaheen Details Efforts to Make Insulin Affordable on A Starting Point
**Bipartisan legislation to cap monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 enjoys robust and growing bipartisan support in the Senate**
(Washington, DC) – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) detailed her efforts to make insulin more affordable for the millions of Americans who rely on it daily to survive. On the digital media platform A Starting Point, Shaheen highlighted how her bipartisan legislation—which enjoys strong and growing bipartisan support in the Senate—would lower the cost of insulin for all Americans with insurance and create a pilot program to provide affordable insulin to those without insurance.
New polling released last week from the American Diabetes Association found that 40% of respondents who rely on insulin report paying more than $150 per month for insulin, and 76% of respondents across political parties support a $35 limit on cost sharing for insulin.
Key quotes from Shaheen on A Starting Point:
- On why insulin is more expensive in the U.S. compared to other countries, Shaheen said: “You know, it's really frustrating, and I think the simple answer is that we don't regulate it in the same way that other countries do. You know, insulin was discovered at the beginning of the last century. It hasn't changed significantly since that time, and yet the costs have just kept going up. For people who have type 1 diabetes and some forms of type 2 diabetes, they can't live without insulin. This is not like a prescription that they don't need—this is life or death for people with type 1 diabetes.”
- On how the legislation would lower costs, Shaheen said: “You know, what our bill would do is cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month. It's built on something that we passed a couple of years ago in Congress that capped the cost of insulin under Medicare for anyone on Medicare at $35 a month, and it's worked really very well to support people who require insulin. We want to make sure that that's available for everyone who has health insurance, that anybody with health insurance knows that they're not going to have to pay more than $35 a month for their insulin.”
- On whether Americans can expect to see lower insulin prices soon, Shaheen said: “We're doing everything we can to ensure that this bill gets to the floor of the Senate and gets passed. [...] It has strong bipartisan support. It had bipartisan support in the committee. We hope to see it acted on next month. Right now, we have 13 Republican co-sponsors and 13 Democratic co-sponsors of the bill. That's enough people to get it past the filibuster and get it voted on positively on the floor. So that's our goal, we hope to get this done before the end of this Congress.”
Click HERE to watch the full video.
The INSULIN Act would directly address the root problems in the insulin market causing high list prices, while simultaneously extending vital patient protections, fostering competition and broadening access to needed insulin products.
Specifically, the INSULIN Act:
- Limits out-of-pocket costs for patients with diabetes by ensuring that group and individual market health plans must waive any deductible and limit cost-sharing to no more than $35 per month for at least one insulin of each type and dosage form.
- Mandates pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) pass through 100% of insulin rebates and other discounts received from manufacturers to plan sponsors, reducing perverse incentives in the insulin market that encourage high list prices and help patients in the form of reduced premiums.
- Promotes generic and biosimilar competition to lower costs for patients.
- Creates a pilot grant program for 10 states to implement programs to identify uninsured diabetes patients and provide them with insulin at $35 a month.
- Establishes an insulin resource center and hotline for uninsured diabetes patients to connect them with resources about diabetes and programs to help them secure insulin.
The bipartisan INSULIN Act is supported by the American Diabetes Association, Breakthrough T1D, the Endocrine Society and others.
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