Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - New provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, recently approved by Congress and signed into law, will reduce prescription drug prices, including capping out-of-pocket insulin costs to $35 a month for people on Medicare.
Congressman Brian Higgins alongside representatives from AARP New York, the Kidney Foundation of WNY, the American Diabetes Association and ECMC stood outside ECMC to highlight what people do to moderate their costs of insulin.
"Over 34 million people in America live with diabetes and nearly a quarter of them rely on insulin. Compared to those in other developed countries, people using insulin in the United States pay up to 10 times the cost for this life saving drug. From 2014 to 2019, the average retail price of insulin rose by 54%. As a result, one in four Americans who rely on insulin have cut back or skip doses altogether," said Congressman Higgins.
The Inflation Reduction Act will empower Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices on certain drugs and cap annual out of pocket drug prices to $2,000 and cap insulin costs to $35 per month.
"In 2020, an estimated 133,000 people living in Western New York were enrolled in Medicare Part D, the total cost of prescriptions filled by these beneficiaries was $250 million dollars. About 4000 of these Western New Yorkers had out of pocket costs above $2,000. Beginning in 2023, monthly co-payments for insulin products will be capped at $35 per month for Medicare beneficiaries, benefiting up to 1.7 million people who use insulin nationwide," Congressman Higgins says.
"I spend the majority of my day explaining to patients that they have a chronic medical condition. We then discuss why it's so important to control that condition to prevent all of the serious consequences of their medical diagnosis. You then come up with a plan that we agree to that we ask the patient to participate in. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out that the patient was unable to afford the medicine that we agreed would help them live a healthier and longer life. I'm optimistic that some upcoming changes will allow me and my team to focus on the health and well being of the patients instead of all the barriers that they have to the cost of their medications," said Dr. Ellen Rich, Medical Director of the Internal Medicine Center at ECMC.
"As someone who has been practicing in this community for the last 25 years, I've personally seen and heard many stories of patients skipping their insulin or rationing their insulin and this leads them to have a risk of numerous complications due to uncontrolled diabetes and for admission to the hospital for life threatening conditions related to dangerously elevated blood sugars," said Dr. Ajay Chaudhuri, Co-Chair of the American Diabetes Association Community Leadership Board.
Congressman Brian Higgins and Ann Monroe, AARP New York Executive Council Member say this is just the beginning of the continued effort to lower high prescription drug costs.
"We have on our next agenda at AARP to get some of these benefits for people who are less than 65, but who have the same costs for insulin and high health care. There's no more that can be said about the importance of Medicare negotiating health prescription costs. No one could believe when Part D was passed 20 years ago, that Medicare passed up the opportunity to use its leverage to bring costs down for older people. This fixes that particular problem. The next task is to work with commercial health plans in New York to get the same benefit passed for people below 65. One of the other things that doesn't get as much attention but I think is critically important, is holding drug companies accountable," says Monroe.
"Many people who have diabetes or who have chronic kidney disease, are struggling with these costs of multiple medications and deciding whether I can pay for gas to get my rights to dialysis, or if I can pay for my insulin that I need or pay for other drugs that I need to maintain my health. So this is really crucial," said Jeremy Morlock, director of the Kidney Foundation of Western New York.
See the player below for the full announcement: