WASHINGTON – Both Congressmen Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY-18) and Antonio Delgado (D, NY-19) voted in favor of the Affordable Insulin Now Act, legislation to cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 per month in Medicare Part D and commercial health insurance. The measure will also need approval in the Senate before being sent to the president’s desk for his signature.
Maloney said it is “unacceptable” that people face “sky-high prices” for medication like insulin.“Right now, there is no cap and people are paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month, maybe $4,000 a year, I’ve read, so this is a big deal and it will help so many New Yorkers – a million New Yorkers, in fact – who are diabetic, so many right here in the Hudson Valley,” he said. “The Affordable Insulin Now Act is pivotal legislation that is long overdue.”
Delgado said the legislation will help “ensure vital and affordable access to life-saving medication for the more than 37 million people in the United States who have diabetes.”
If signed into law, beginning in 2023, it would require private health plans to cover at least one of each type of dosage form of insulin and caps cost-sharing for a 30-day supply at the lesser of $35 or 25 percent of a plan’s negotiated price. The bill also requires all Medicare prescription drug plans to cap cost-sharing for insulin at no more than $35.
