Indiana News

Hoosiers call for expanded price caps on insulin companies

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CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (NETWORK INDIANA) — Healthcare is always a hot button topic discussed during election years. This election cycle is no different, especially for people who are diabetic.

For over a decade, Molly King, who lives in Crawfordsville, has been dealing with Type 1 diabetes and relies on insulin to survive. This election cycle she is part of an advocacy group urging those running for office to expand price caps being imposed on companies that make insulin, such as Eli Lilly.

She is getting involved because she just found out that the brand of insulin she relies on, Levemir, is being discontinued soon. It’s maker is citing manufacturing difficulties with the drug, but King said it can be a tough process for some diabetics to switch to a different brand of insulin.

“It is not an easy process to change all of that based on my insurance, and just what my body is used to, because your body does acclimate to medication,” King said on WISH-TV.

But, she added that’s just one of many problems she deals with. Affordability is another, especially with politicians today running on platforms of having lowered the price of insulin.

“Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have claimed that they have taken the price of insulin down to $35 across the country, that is actually not the case,” King said. “They have provided a Medicare and Medicaid copay cap.”

So as that would indicate, the price of insulin has only been capped at $35 for Americans who were on Medicare and Medicaid. King said that cap should be expanded across the board regardless of insurance.

There are also anti-trust concerns that she and other advocates have. All of the nation’s insulin manufacturing capacity is owned by three major companies in the U.S.: Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Lilly. King says this allows the three giants to price the medication however they choose.

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