WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in cosponsoring the bipartisan INSULIN Act that would make life more affordable for Americans living with diabetes, by capping out-of-pocket costs for people on private insurance at $35.
Support for the legislation totals 28 Republican and Democratic Senators, and importantly, surpasses the Senate’s 60-vote-threshold.
“No one should have to go without the medicine they need to live just because of how much it costs,” said Slotkin. “I voted to cap insulin prices at $35 for those on Medicare, and now, this bipartisan bill extends that cap to everyone on private insurance. This is long overdue progress, and we must keep working to lower prescription drug costs for every American.”
Slotkin is a longtime supporter of lowering the price of prescription drugs. She voted to cap the cost of insulin in the Inflation Reduction Act at $35 for people on Medicare, and to finally lower Medicare to negotiate lower prices for some drugs – lowering costs for seniors.
The Improving Needed Safeguards for Users of Lifesaving Insulin Now (INSULIN) Act would cap the monthly out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 for Americans on private and employer-sponsored insurance and create a pilot program to provide insulin at the same cost to Americans without insurance.
The push to cap the monthly cost of insulin comes as the cost of health care continues to top Americans’ affordability concerns.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 legislation is supported by the American Diabetes Association, Breakthrough T1D, the Endocrine Society, the National Kidney Foundation and others.
In addition to Slotkin and Shaheen, the legislation is supported by U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Angus King (I-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Susan Collins (R-ME) , Raphael Warnock (D-GA), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Dave McCormick (R-PA), Katie Britt (R-AL), Chris Coons (D-DE), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jim Justice (R-WV), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Joni Ernst (R-IA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jim Banks (R-IN) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).
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