It’s time to cap insulin prices; it’s a matter of life or death for Iowans

Two bills with overwhelming bipartisan support passed the Iowa House in 2021. HF262 and HF263 together would allow pharmacists to refill lifesaving medicines in an emergency and cap insulin costs at $100.

As a ranking member of the Senate Human Resources Committee, I asked the Chair of the committee, Senator Jeff Edler, to bring these lifesaving bills up for a vote this session, but he refused.

One in ten adult Iowans have been diagnosed with diabetes. Chances are you know someone who has diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease which causes the pancreas to not produce insulin. For the 1.6 million adults and nearly 250,000 children with Type 1 diabetes in the U.S., not having a constant supply of insulin is a matter of life or death.

In my own life, I’ve heard from my neighbors whose son Matt was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 11. Matt’s mother Deb and her husband lived in constant fear of insulin vials breaking, or damage to the insulin pump tubing which could waste several vials of insulin quickly.

Original source can be found here.