Beshear challenges lawmakers to cap the cost of insulin co-payments in Kentucky
Gov. Andy Beshear, lawmakers and health advocates told horror stories Tuesday about Kentuckians with diabetes who could not afford life-saving insulin. They mentioned financial ruin, loss of limbs and even death.
“Diabetes is not a partisan issue. It is a health epidemic,” said Beshear.
Nearly 600,000 Kentuckians suffer with diabetes and the state ranks seventh in the nation for the disease of high blood sugar, he said.
Beshear held a news conference in the Capitol Tuesday with bipartisan backers of House Bill 12, which caps the cost-sharing requirements for prescription insulin at $100 per 30-day supply.
While drug companies pay $2 to $7 to manufacture a single vial of insulin, Kentuckians hit hardest may be forced to pay more than $1,000 a month for their life-saving supply, said Beshear.
Patients with Type 1 diabetes typically require two or three vials of insulin each month. Patient with Type 2 diabetes may require six or more. People with Type 1 diabetes don’t produce insulin. People with Type 2 diabetes don’t respond to insulin as well as they should and later in the disease often don’t make enough insulin.
Both types of diabetes can lead to chronically high blood sugar levels, which cause various health complications.
“Health care is a human right, but tragically right now there are far too many Kentuckians who are at risk of losing their life or permanently damaging their health because they cannot afford their daily supply of insulin,” Beshear said. “This is unacceptable and dangerous and lawmakers can act by immediately passing legislation to help thousands of fellow Kentuckians. Let’s let Kentucky be one of the first to act. We need to cap insulin costs because it’s the right thing to do.”
Two states — Colorado and Illinois —already have capped co-payments of insulin at $100 a month for insured patients. Other states, including Tennessee, are considering similar bills this year.
The two co-sponsors of HB 12 are Reps. Danny Bentley, R-Russell, and Patti Minter, D-Bowling Green.
Bentley, a diabetic and pharmacist, said he is “appalled that a pharmaceutical company expects individuals to pay hundreds of dollars for insulin when it costs just a small fraction of that to manufacture.”
Minter told how “terrified” she was when she learned that her son, Alex, had Type 1 diabetes when he was 19 months old.
“This bill will save lives,” she said.
Sarah Ferguson, the Kentucky leader of Insulin for All, an advocacy group that wants to make insulin affordable, talked about a friend who is losing her legs “from years of not being able to afford her insulin.”
“Insulin is not an option. You must have it to live. The choice becomes what to skimp on — whether to pay the rent or the electric bill, or even how little insulin you could possibly get by on,” said Ferguson. “People are dying in Kentucky because they can’t afford insulin and children are being removed from their homes and put in foster care because their parents can’t afford insulin.”
Beshear said he does not believe the bill should cause the cost of health insurance to increase.
“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t folks out there that might try but in our Department of Insurance and I believe across the hall, we will be ready,” said Beshear, referring to the nearby office of Attorney General Daniel Cameron who is pursuing the lawsuits Beshear filed last May against three insulin makers.
Cameron’s director of communications, Elizabeth Kuhn, said Cameron is “committed to pursuing litigation against insulin manufacturers for inflating the cost of life-saving insulin in violation of Kentucky’s consumer protection laws.”
A fact sheet distributed by Bentley said the proposed legislation is not expected to increase administrative costs of insurers. He said the estimated increase in premiums for health benefit plans are about about 7 cents to 24 cents a month per member.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 3:11 PM.
