Davids Votes to Cap Insulin Costs for Kansans

Bipartisan legislation caps insulin costs at $35 a month for private insurance and Medicare
Today, Representative Sharice Davids voted to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for Kansans with diabetes. The Affordable Insulin Now Act passed the House with bipartisan support.

"Insulin prices have continued to soar while drug companies rake in profits. This is an issue in our country, and our country alone. It's long past time we do something about it," said Davids. "By capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month, we are not only lowering a major cost burden for tens of thousands of Kansans--we are saving lives."

Davids' 2019 report on insulin prices found that in the Third District, there are 17,000 seniors and disabled Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, and that those Kansans pay as much as 4.8 times as much for brand-name diabetes medication as patients in other countries. In total, Johnson and Wyandotte County residents on Medicare pay more than $16 million for their insulin annually. Today, she voted to require insurers to cap patient cost-sharing for insulin at $35 per month, both for those with Medicare and private insurance.

Under the $35 a month maximum, the Affordable Insulin Now Act requires private individual and group plans to cover at least one of each dosage form (such as a vial or pen) and type (such as short acting, long acting, and premixed). For Medicare beneficiaries, the cap applies to whichever insulin products are covered under their plan for plan years 2023 and 2024, and then all insulin products would apply beginning in 2025.

Overland Park resident Heather Meyer joined Davids earlier this month to share her experience as a Type I diabetic. Meyer shared that before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, she had to ration insulin, putting her health at serious risk. The ACA helped her afford coverage as someone with a pre-existing condition--but she still has difficulty covering the exorbitantly high cost of insulin.

"Many times, I could not scrape together the $500-800 each month for the insulin I needed to survive. I drove to several hospitals and clinics, in search of anyone that could give me insulin to hold me over. I was still injecting blindly. I had no idea the long-term damage it would do to my health," said Heather Meyer, Overland Park resident and Kansas State Representative for the 29th District. "To know that Rep. Davids and the House have passed a $35 cap on the price of insulin gives me hope that we will finally get these costs under control and save lives."

Davids is a fierce advocate for making health care affordable and accessible to all Kansans. She has voted to create the first ever out-of-pocket cap on seniors' prescription drug costs and stop drug companies from raising prices faster than inflation. She has led her colleagues in pushing for Medicare to negotiate for lower prices on medications, a move that would lower costs for all Americans--not just those on Medicare. And she successfully passed a bipartisan law to protect patients from unexpected medical bills, which went into effect this year.

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