Dear Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader McCarthy, Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader McConnell:
"Our organizations represent the overwhelming majority of the nation’s diabetes community—a group of more than 37 million Americans who bear a disproportionate share of the nation’s medical costs and who account for $1 in every $4 spent on health care in the United States today. We write to respectfully urge you to pass the bipartisan INSULIN Act, which would make insulin more affordable for millions of Americans.
Without this legislation—which includes rebate incentives and cost-sharing protections for insulin manufacturers to reduce costs and a $35 monthly copay cap on at least one type of insulin in private insurance and Medicare plans—there is a continued risk that one in four insulin-dependent patients will have to keep rationing their supply, skipping doses and risking their lives because they cannot afford the medication needed to keep them alive. The price of insulin nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013, and the trend upward has continued over the past decade. Lack of access to affordable insulin will only become more dire the longer Congress waits to act to reduce patient costs."