A brand new law will bring financial relief to hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans dealing with diabetes and asthma.
The law caps co-pays at $25 for medications and $50 for supplies like EpiPen's, insulin pumps and inhalers, necessary tools for patients dealing with these conditions.
DFL Representative Mike Howard (Richfield) says it only makes sense.
"For these medications that are life critical, life necessary, to force families to really break the bank to survive, essentially, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense," Howard explains. "And so this will ensure that many more families are able to afford the medications they need."
Howard says prices for asthma and diabetes mediations have soared over the past decade, causing unnecessary stress on families and patients. More than 500,000 Minnesotans have been diagnosed with asthma and around 390,000 have either Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes.
"You get a diagnosis, for example, that your child has Type 1 Diabetes and it's overwhelming," says Howard. "And then on top of that, to go to the pharmacy and have to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars for medications or supplies that you absolutely need? The burden and hardship that places on families is just unconscionable."
The medical supplies covered by the law include syringes, insulin pens and pumps, test strips, glucometers, continuous glucose monitors, epinephrine auto-injectors, and asthma inhalers.
Under the law, the cost-sharing limit for related medical supplies will not increase with the number of chronic diseases for which an enrollee is treated, and coverage would not be subject to a deductible.