More states are doing what they can to reduce insulin costs
In her early twenties, Carissa Hunt learned the hard lesson of what happens when someone is fortified with life-sustaining drugs.
Hunt was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 4 and has been taking insulin ever since to help control her blood sugar levels. But while she was in college and feeling guilty for exhausting her parents by paying too much for insulin, she began lowering her prescribed dosage. “She was a little lower here, a little lower,” she recalled recently.
It proved to be a life-altering decision, one that resulted in two surgeries on each eye and, eventually, the complete loss of vision in her left eye.
Once she graduated from college and her health insurance plan, Hunt couldn’t afford $400 a month. With legalization a no-go, I found another unpopular solution: an older, lower-cost version of insulin sold at Walmart.
She didn’t control her diabetes nearly as well, leaving her sick more often. She was concerned about long-term damage to her kidneys and the nerves in her extremities. However, it cost her $75 a month. She told herself she had no other choice.
“I felt like I traded away years ago at the end of my life to survive now,” said Hunt, now 36, who works in marketing and lives in Commerce City, Colo., northeast of Denver.
But 2019 brought about a welcome change: Colorado became the first state to pass a law that would put a $100 limit on monthly out-of-pocket expenses that some diabetics will be required to pay for insulin. At one time, she could afford her optimal insulin.
“I felt like I was giving myself years of my life back,” Hunt said.
In response to the sharp rise in out-of-pocket insulin costs over the past two decades—enough to force many diabetics, like Hunt, to ration their use of the drug—nearly two dozen states have taken measures in the past few years that limit out-of-pocket costs. for some patients.
Last year, Louisiana and Maryland became the latest, bringing the total to 22. In addition to Washington, D.C., other states are preparing to consider similar measures this year, including Nebraska and New Jersey.
“These proposed solutions are definitely a step in the right direction and address a major harm, which is when people fortify rations because of affordability,” said Dr. Jing Lu, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Center. For pharmaceutical policy and prescriptions.
But state hats leave many residents. It covers patients who are enrolled in state-regulated health insurance plans, which are generally individual health insurance policies sold on the Affordable Care Act markets as well as state employee health plans.
However, most large employers and union health plans cannot be covered by state laws; Those that fall under federal government regulations. Almost half of the US population, or about 156 million people, in employer health plans. by contrast, 17 million people Are enrolled in ACA plans.
Last summer, Congress imposed a $35 cap on insulin co-payments for Medicare beneficiaries who are 65 or older. But Senate Republicans in August pulled from the budget bill a measure that would have put a $35 cap on patients with private insurance. Some argued that it did not solve the reasons behind the increase in insulin prices and that insurance companies would raise premiums to offset the cost, Washington Post mentioned.
The financial burden of caps falls on the group of players involved in drug distribution — manufacturers, health plans and pharmacy benefit managers, known as PBMs, who manage pharmacy benefits for health plans.
These entities generally have somewhat ambiguous and controversial relationships that ultimately determine drug prices and the distribution of profits between them. Critics have long complained that the lack of transparency makes it hard to know if patients are paying reasonable amounts for their medications.
At least publicly, the groups are showing a good side to the new legislation. For example, the drug company Sanofi, one of the three major insulin makers, said in an email to: state limit It supports restrictions on sharing.
But if patients are having trouble paying for insulin, the company has indicated that others in the supply chain may be responsible. “Sanofi has long supported efforts to reduce monthly subscriptions for capped insulin to ensure patients directly benefit from Sanofi’s deep discounts on PBMs and health plans to ensure affordable patient access,” the company writes.
Prices are constantly rising
Seven cap states set a $100 limit on subscriptions for a 30-day supply of insulin, the highest amount among states, while others are much lower, according to a tally from the American Diabetes Association.
Connecticut, New Mexico and Texas set limits of $25 per month. Without caps, patients can pay $150 a month or more, especially if they need multiple types of medication.
Some states also place limits on how much patients have to pay for diabetes-related supplies such as syringes, pumps, and test strips, which can also be very expensive.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 million people in the United States, about 1 in 10, have diabetes.
Between 5% and 10% of people with diabetes have type 1 diabetes, which is caused by an autoimmune reaction and usually appears in adolescence or early adulthood. The rest have type 2 diabetes, which usually appears in adulthood and is linked to diet and weight gain. Everyone with type 1 needs insulin, and some with type 2 may need insulin, too. According to the Diabetes Association, 6 million American patients Take insulin.
Since the early 2000s, when manufacturers raised the price of insulin, the cost to patients has gone up. A 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that for Medicare beneficiaries, out-of-pocket spending on insulin jumped from $236 million in 2007 to $1.01 billion in 2018, More than 300% increase at that time. This is consistent with other analyzes that showed the price of insulin nearly tripled in the first decade of the 21st century.
Three manufacturers produce most of the insulin in the United States. Over the years, these manufacturers have been able to keep patents in place by making minor tweaks, said Luo of the University of Pittsburgh. Insulin is also a biological drug. These are derived from living organisms and involve a more complex federal approval process that has so far prevented the production of cheaper generic alternatives. This combination of forces has enabled manufacturers to continually raise the price of insulin.
Colorado acts first
Inevitably, the costs to patients have led many to ration insulin. In a 2020 survey conducted by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, 40% of the state’s population uses insulin They reported that they resorted to rationing at least once a year. The report stated that in some cases, patients with diabetes said they took up fasting to try to control their blood sugar levels.
Democratic Colorado Sen. Dylan Roberts became aware of the high out-of-pocket costs of insulin at a young age. As a child in the early 2000s, his younger brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
“I remember at the time it was a huge burden,” he recalled earlier this month. “Even then, it was very challenging for families, especially if you didn’t have insurance.”
After taking office in 2017, Roberts has become increasingly eager to pass a measure to help ensure insulin can be afforded by diabetics.
“It makes no sense that the cost would be too high for any capitalist or market,” he said. “And you have to take it, or you will die, so you are really being held hostage.”
His insulin-limiting bill of $100 a month passed with strong bipartisan support in 2019.
Two years later, he returned and successfully pushed a law through the legislature setting the amount that uninsured and uninsured people had to pay for insulin at $50 a month. Only one other state, Minnesota, places any limits on the amount uninsured residents have to pay for real estate.
Roberts said he understands that insulin is just one of the drugs that has seen prices skyrocket over the years, but he also believes there is a strong case for giving the drug special legislative attention, especially at the federal level.
“People died because they couldn’t get affordable insulin,” he said.