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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 4, 2019 09:23 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Jeanne McNeill and Rep. Mike Zabel |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Insulin Cap Price |
| When insulin was discovered in 1923 as a treatment for diabetes, the patent for the drug was sold for $3. The founders believed profiting from a drug that would save millions of lives was medically unethical and an immense conflict of interest for healthcare. Today, we are all too familiar with skyrocketing prescription drug prices, and insulin is consistently one of the top offenders in a country where 10% of its population is dependent on the drug to survive. In 2016, the average monthly out-of-pocket cost was $450, with some individuals reporting costs upwards of $1,000 a month and no signs from manufacturers that the uptick is slowing down. The number of horrifying stories of individuals who are left to decide between paying their rent or buying groceries and accessing the life-sustaining drug are endless in our state. More commonly, people are forced to ration their doses, subjecting them to a premature, preventable death – an outcome resulting from the reprehensible price gouging they are faced with every day. To address this injustice, our bill would set a mandatory price cap on the monthly cost of insulin for patients at $100 a month and call upon the attorney general to investigate the choices made by pharmaceutical companies that have allowed us to reach this point of financial crisis. Please join us in supporting this life-saving legislation and becoming the second state to pass such a critical initiative. |
Introduced as HB1873