Diabetes is one of the major health problems faced by Latinos in the United States who, according to the American Diabetes Association, have a 66% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and once diagnosed, have worse developmental outcomes. of the disease than non-Hispanic whites.
Because of this, access to insulin has become an issue of vital importance for the Latino community whose vote could be decisive in the presidential elections on November 5.
The vice president and Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, addressed the issue this Tuesday in an interview with Noticias Telemundo to warn that if her rival, former President Donald Trump, reaches the White House, she will eliminate the cap on the cost of insulin.
“We have seen what he intends to do with Project 2025. I urge viewers to Google what Project 2025 is about. He would make the price of insulin… We have capped the price of insulin at $35 per month for older people,” said Harris in conversation with Julio Vaqueiro.
“He (Trump) would eliminate that cap,” Harris said.
When examining this statement by the vice president we find that there is no clear evidence that Trump plans to eliminate the cap on insulin prices. But health experts warn that the Republican Party could have a different position and that the former president, if he reaches the White House, may not be willing to go against the will of his party. This is what we know about the topic so far:
Insulin, Republicans and Project 2025
In 2020, the former Republican president established a temporary program under which some Medicare Part D health plans could voluntarily offer some insulin products for no more than $35 a month. It was active between 2021 and 2023, with less than half of the plans participating each year. In 2022 The Biden Administration achieved the approval of a statute through the Inflation Reduction Act, which set the maximum cost of insulin for people with Medicare at $35 a month and covered all products with the drug.
Noticias Telemundo contacted the Harris campaign to ask what leads them to claim that Trump will eliminate the cap on the cost of insulin. In its response via email, the campaign made reference to the budget proposal included in Project 2025 to repeal the Inflation Reduction Law of 2022, which limits the prices of some medicines and that, precisely, allowed a limit to be placed on the price of medicine. insulin at $35 a month.
They also noted that the House Republican Study Committee is calling for the repeal of the Medicare drug trading program, calling it “socialist price controls.”
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, saying he “has nothing to do” with it, although it cannot be denied that a significant group of the former president’s former senior advisers were involved in drafting the nearly 1,000-page document. The former director of the project, for example, is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff of the US Office of Personnel Management during the Trump Administration. That, however, does not allow us to affirm that Trump is going to eliminate the measures that put a limit on the price of insulin.
Experts, however, have warned that this measure could be in danger if Republicans take power in November. Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Medicare policy program, explained to Noticias Telemundo that while Trump himself may not have articulated a position on eliminating the Inflation Reduction Act “many of his Republican allies in Congress and Republicans affiliated with him who support Project 2025 “They have asked for the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Law.”
Members of the House Republican Study Committee, a conservative parliamentary group, also proposed a full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act in their fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.
“If Trump wins the presidency and if Congress does in fact pass legislation to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, it is reasonable to wonder whether Trump would be willing to go against his party by vetoing such legislation to preserve certain provisions, such as the limit $35 copay for insulin,” Cubanski said.
Although Medicare is launching a process to negotiate drug prices, some conservatives have questioned the measure, stating that it amounts to government price controls, Stephen Patrick, from the department of health policy and management, explained to Noticias Telemundo. from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. “I think there is a reasonable concern that this (efforts to negotiate drug prices) could be reversed in a Trump Administration,” he added.
Patrick, however, said he hasn’t seen any proposals from Trump that would eliminate the insulin price cap.
The cost of living with diabetes
Determining the cost of a bottle of insulin in the United States is extremely difficult since it depends on factors such as: the type of insulin each person uses, the type of health insurance they have, and whether they are eligible for a rebate from the drug manufacturer. .
What is clear is that the cost of insulin in the country far exceeds that of other countries. The RAND Corporation, a public policy think tank, estimated that in 2018, the average list price of a vial of insulin in the United States was $98.70, up to ten times more than in other countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization based in Paris.
Even when analysts took into account discounts offered by drug makers, the cost of insulin was still four times higher than in other countries.
People with type 1 diabetes need, on average one to three bottles of insulin per monthaccording to the American Diabetes Association. Patients with type 2 diabetes do not always need to take insulin, but those who do need it may sometimes need more than people with type 1 diabetes.
A person with insurance could pay more than $35 a month for a vial of insulin, while the monthly out-of-pocket cost for people with a high deductible was $141, according to a JAMA Network Open report published in 2020.
And some have had to spend more than $200 for the medication. Such was the case of Alec Smith, a 26-year-old with type 1 diabetes. He died in 2017 from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that occurs when the body does not have enough insulin.
Smith was no longer covered by his parents’ health insurance and was about $300 short of paying for his insulin, which cost $1,300, according to his mother, Nicole Smith-Holt. He wanted to wait until his next payday to buy the medication and rationed what was left of his insulin. “Unfortunately, they found his body three days before payday,” said Smith-Holt, of Richfield, Minnesota.
The Latino community’s greater likelihood of acquiring diabetes has led to a significant disparity in the rate of amputations related to complications of the disease, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine. Additionally, in 2020, Hispanics in the country were 1.5 times more likely than non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ minority health office.
Trump accuses Biden of “stealing” credit for capping insulin costs
In mid-August, the former president falsely accused Harris and President Joe Biden of taking credit for lowering insulin costs in the United States during a speech in North Carolina.
“Kamala and Joe tried to take credit for $35 insulin. “Did they know?” Trump said during the rally in the city of Asheville. “Do you know who did it? I did it. I did it. I did the insulin thing and it was effective.”
“I did it (lowering insulin to $35) and now they take credit for it. “It’s terrible, terrible,” he added.
But the measure that was approved by his Administration was temporary and limited in scope since, in principle, the cap did not apply to those who had private insurance. However, after the Inflation Reduction Act was implemented during the Biden administration, insulin manufacturers voluntarily reduced the cost to $35 a month for people with private insurance.
Vice President Harris has proposed extending that $35 limit for insulin to all Americans who have private health insurance.
