Support for Limiting Insulin Costs

In an attempt to limit high out-of-pocket costs for people with diabetes, a Senate panel on Wednesday approved a bill that would place a $100 cap on cost-sharing requirements for 30-day supplies of insulin.

The measure would apply to employer-sponsored and individual health insurance policies that are not bought on the federal insurance exchange and that offer prescription drug benefits. The bill wouldn’t restrict what drug manufacturers can charge for insulin, which led committee members to ask is it possible we could be looking at increased (insurance) premium prices? Costs for the state employee health-insurance plan would increase by 75 cents to 90 cents a year per member. The Trump administration limited out-of-pocket costs for people who get prescription-drug benefits through what is known as Medicare Part D, but those protections don’t apply to people on

employer-sponsored or individual plans not purchased on the federal exchange.

According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, the average list price of insulin nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013, and cost sharing, or out-of-pocket, costs per prescription doubled over a 10-year period. The American Diabetes Association estimates that 105,000 people in Florida are diagnosed with diabetes annually.