Living with Type 1 diabetes is difficult. It must be continuously and carefully managed 24/7 with testing blood sugar levels and administering insulin. While insulin injections keep people with Type 1 diabetes and other forms of diabetes alive and can help keep blood glucose levels within range, it is not a cure.
My son was diagnosed at 24 and was plunged into the world of doctors' appointments, finger sticks and shots. Thankfully, he was on my insurance.
It has been 100 years since insulin became available for people with diabetes to use. Yet today, three companies — Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi — dominate more than 90% of the insulin market. While insulin costs around $6 per dose to manufacture, these three companies can charge whatever the market will bear. This leads to skyrocketing prices and leaves people who are dependent on insulin to live bankrupt and sick.
One in four people who are insulin dependent have reported the dangerous practice of rationing their insulin due to price as the average patient cost of insulin has skyrocketed, with devastating results.
That's what happened to my son Alec in 2017. Within a month of going off my health insurance policy when he turned 26, Alec died from rationing his insulin because he couldn't afford it.
Legislation authored by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., proposing a $35 copay cap on insulin would let the pharmaceutical industry get away with their greed. Copay caps are an important step to capping the price of insulin, which is why 18 states have passed them in recent years — much to the pharmaceutical industry's chagrin. But they continue to put the burden on patients to pay the ever-increasing costs through their insurance. Copay caps also don't cover those who are uninsured, and they don't cumulatively cover all insulins a patient has been prescribed.
Our children's lives are not PR talking points for politicking. We need a true price cap on insulin. Capping the price of insulin at the pharmacy counter for anyone who needs it, regardless of insurance, will save lives as we work on more structural changes to lower the cost of insulin for those with and without insurance. We need policy solutions that will put the lives of patients over profits.
I believe in a world where everyone with diabetes, no matter where they live, has everything they need to survive and achieve their dreams. That's why I'm calling on Minnesota Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar and our U.S. House delegation to introduce insulin affordability price-cap legislation and move quickly to get it passed through Congress.
