Diabetes report shows we must lower drug prices

By Rep. TJ Cox
December 10, 2019

Can you imagine having to choose between having enough food or the medicine that keeps you alive? One out of four people in California’s 21st congressional district who live with diabetes say they have had to make just that choice.

To make ends meet, they’ve had to ration their insulin. If someone with type 1 or type 2 diabetes doesn’t take insulin when their blood sugar runs high, they can risk costly hospital stays, losing sight, or a limb or even losing their life. Nobody wants to ration their medication, but with skyrocketing insulin costs, 1 out of 4 people with diabetes in California’s 21st Congressional District tell us they have had to ration their insulin. That is unacceptable.

In our district alone, 14,000 seniors and Medicare beneficiaries have been diagnosed with diabetes. It’s a complex condition to manage, often requiring frequent monitoring, diet changes, additional medications, and specialized equipment. While disease management technology and assistance has improved significantly, including continuous glucose monitoring devices and diabetes-alert dogs that can sense blood sugar changes in patients even before glucose monitors, all these advances are useless if you can’t afford a steady supply of insulin. For the tens of thousands of our Central Valley neighbors who live with diabetes and everyone around the country who struggles to afford their prescriptions, we must act.

Last month, I released a report on diabetes in our district and the findings were more disturbing than expected. Despite the patent having expired long ago, the cost of insulin has increased by more than 1,000% in the last 20 years. This isn’t an accident. The manufacturers of the most effective type of insulin typically raise their prices together, charging up to $300 for a product that would be profitable if they sold it for $11. Today, families in the 21st District are paying $1,240 every year for analog insulin.

However, this problem isn’t limited to diabetes. Access to high-quality, affordable health care and prescription drugs is fundamental to our wellbeing. Unfortunately, high drug prices and a dangerous lack of transparency have put health care out of reach for many families. Skyrocketing drug costs are crushing the people of the Central Valley at the pharmacy counter, driving up health insurance premiums, and creating unaffordable costs for taxpayers who help finance Medicare and Medicaid. Our families deserve better.

As a businessman, I know competition and negotiation are a key part of the solution to bring down drug prices. However, in 2006 when the Republican Congress wrote the law that created Part D, the Medicare program that covers prescription drugs, they gave big drug companies a huge gift. Even though Medicare pays for billions in drugs every year, the Congress at that time made it illegal for Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. The American people have had enough and it’s time for this Congress to act to make life-saving drugs more accessible for everyday Americans.

This week, the House will vote on the Elijah Eugene Cummings Lower Drug Prices Now Act, H.R. 3, legislation that could lower the cost of prescription drugs for families in the Central Valley and throughout our country.

H.R. 3 would allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prescription drug prices and reverse unjustified price gouging on thousands of medications like insulin. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has already stated the bill would lower domestic drug prices and save at least $345 billion for the American people. That’s about $1,920 every year for a family of four.

Lowering the cost of life-saving medicine is not a partisan issue. When I meet with constituents throughout the district, they don’t tell me if they’re Republican or Democrat. They tell me they have diabetes, they have asthma, they have cancer, and many of them tell me they can’t afford their medicine.

I urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to help advance an agenda for working families, not an agenda that undermines them. Central Valley working families should not have to choose between paying the bills and staying healthy.

 
Democrat TJ Cox represents parts of Fresno, Kings, Kern and Tulare counties in the House of Representatives.