Lots of Americans say they are prepared to vote against President Joe Biden in November. Among the many reasons seems to be a persistent belief that Biden has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” (according to an ABC-Washington Post poll from the summer), or that his policies have actually hurt people (according to a Wall Street Journal poll from last month).
…
I suspect most Americans do grasp that Biden supports and wants to strengthen “Obamacare,” while his likely opponent ― i.e., Trump, currently the GOP front-runner ― still wants to get rid of it. But most Americans seem unaware that Biden and the Democrats have also been working to make insulin cheaper, through a pair of changes that are already taking effect.
The first of these arrived as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping 2022 climate and health care legislation that included several initiatives to reduce the price of prescription drugs. Among them was a provision guaranteeing that Medicare beneficiaries ― that is, seniors and people with disabilities ― could get insulin for just $35 a month.
The provision took effect a year ago and, at the time, the administration estimated that something like 1.5 million seniors stood to save money from it. Indeed, there’s already evidence that fewer seniors are rationing their own insulin in order to save money. But as of August, polling from the health research organization KFF found that just 24% of Americans knew the $35 cap existed.
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As of Jan. 1, the three companies that dominate the market (Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi) have all lowered prices and made some of their products available to non-elderly, non-disabled Americans for the same $35 a month that Medicare beneficiaries now pay. The companies announced these changes last year, presenting them as a voluntary action to show they want to make sure customers can get lifesaving drugs.
But by nearly all accounts, it was primarily a reaction to an obscure policy change in Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for low-income people. The effect of the tweak was to penalize drug companies financially if they had been raising commercial prices too quickly.
It’s not JUST insulin though. Diabetes runs in my family, so I grew up experiencing all the highs and lows. (HA! BEETUS JOKE!)
EVERYTHING about managing it is expensive. The needles are expensive, the test strips are STUPID expensive, as are the meters and CGM systems.
Imagine this… you’re a type 1 and have to test multiple times a day.
$38 for 90 strips. Now that doesn’t sound AWFUL, does it? Except a type 1 is supposed to test at least 4 times a day… Suddenly those 90 strips aren’t even a full months supply. I’ve seen folks test 6 times a day, now that 90 strips lasts 15 days.
And $38 for 90 is CHEAP. They can easily run $1 a strip.
This is a great step forward. You can’t change the majority of pharmaceutical companies overnight, but it’s fantastic that it is finally changing.
Regulation. For all the people that are going to argue that regulation is bad, regulation means forestalling the inevitable profit driven greed of corporate pharmacy.
not really
eventually babies grow up and adult steps should be taken
US policy on everything is either do nothing or take small baby steps
Roe vs Wade was a baby step that was supposed to be codified but baby steps we were told are enough
This is why I don’t use the term “baby steps”. It is an inaccurate labeling of a small step, engendering it with some sort of illogical inevitability that must grow to maturity.
It doesn’t matter if something is a “baby step”. It matters that steps are taken in the right direction.
This legislation is a step in the right direction.
It doesn’t matter if something is a “baby step”. It matters that steps are taken in the right direction.
It matters if we let that step be the only step, which Democrats do all too often.
As do Republicans. Your statement means nothing in practice.
This is a small, societally practical beneficial step.
That is what matters.
As do Republicans.
I resent the implication that I support Republicans.
This is a small, societally practical beneficial step.
And if we’re satisfied, Democrats will stop right here and progress no further.
That is a strange and illogical conclusion.
Why would you stop once you begin making progress?
Don’t stop. The fact that you are making progress implies that you can make further progress.
Why would you stop once you begin making progress?
I don’t know. Why did Democrats stop pushing for the minimum wage increase? Why did we stop pushing for codifying Roe? Why did we stop pushing for restoring the Voting Rights Act? Why did we stop pushing for the public option?
Democrats stop if you don’t apply pressure.
We all here blaming and shaming while forgetting that most of us are complicit in that we’ve taken, at best, baby steps to fix the situation as a whole. That is the entire overarching situation in the U.S.
Dems use ‘baby steps’ as an excuse for doing nothing, and when voters start getting loud about no progress they can reply with ‘it takes time’ Baby steps is how the DNC went from antiwar war to warmongering and centrists to right wing. Small unnoticeable steps to the right
This article feels a little like a backhanded compliment.
Yes, i really dislike the articles tone, as if we are children. Overall vibe is like Mom telling me how good broccoli is for me and anyhow im not eaving till i eat it anyway so id better get going before it gets cold
It’s especially frustrating because it seems to imply that Biden is owed fealty and gratitude because he did something good for the people. It’s the other way around. Biden owes the people good works, and good public policy. The cost of healthcare shouldn’t be as high as it is, and doing something about it is what we ought to expect of elected Representatives.
It also gives him credit for the pharmaceutical companies voluntarily offering insulin at the same price as Medicare pays. It is not due to regulation or negotiation, but a PR move designed to stave off actual regulations. Insulin is one drug, one example that was a perfect metaphor for the unfettered profiteering from the healthcare industry.
They don’t want the government to limit how much they can charge for insulin, because it wouldn’t stop with insulin. So they lower the price of insulin and let Biden dance around the ring with his arms raised like he knocked out the champ. Thank him! Praise him! He’s doing this for you, you ungrateful peasants! He’s not a misogynist or a fascist like the last guy, so you better be on your knees in front of his altar, or the bad guys are going to come back.
I mean, you don’t even have to click into the article to read that it was only “voluntary” because the government was about to enforce the new law and force them to lower prices. A law that was Biden’s BTW, part of the inflation reduction act. This would never have happened under a Republican.
One doesn’t have to be some kind of raving Biden Stan to acknowledge that his administration has been incredibly productive, both in terms of using damage that Trump did, and passing laws and using orders to move us forward. I think that’s all this article is trying to say.
Your rant at the end is weird, unhelpful, and uninformed.
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! AFFORDABLE LIFE SAVING MEDICINE IS SOCIALISMMM!!!1”
-GQP
HISSSS…SOCIALISM!!! lol
FOX NEWS ALERT: BIDEN INCREASES PRICE OF INSULIN!
NEWSMAX BREAKING NEWS: VOTING FOR BIDEN CAUSES TYPE I DIABETES!
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past several presidencies in my life time. Voters tend to disregard the beneficial efforts one president makes because of their party background. So even if Biden did this tremendous achievement, it’s still going to be watered down by the Republican cultists because it wasn’t a Republican who did this. They would’ve preferred a Republican to charge people $1,000 or more for insulin and while being told to be pulling up the boot straps to make the costs.
Bbubut he’s 80 and cognitively impaired!
/s
They wont.
Of course they won’t. The types of people who oppose Biden mindlessly only either pay attention to news sources which will never cover this or they don’t consume news at all. They are idiots (largely) and to reach idiots takes something much more stark
this narrative of “joe biden is actually great for everyone it’s just that everyone is too stupid to notice how great they have it” while we’re slowly being muscled out of the economy sounds like a french aristocrat’s last plea from the scaffold.
Hah!
Cheaper for Boomers? Fucking goodie.
Still doesn’t negate him condoning and funding genocide, funding endless proxy war and starting another, and telling us we are not struggling while ignoring our pleas.
Listening to the masses? That’s the first step towards communism, you godless commie. listening to what the property and business owners say is what the fondant fathers and jesus died for
O let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.
Biden has been great
Great for the donor class, not so much for the working
All of meds went down since the beginning of the new year. Some of them significantly.
would have rather he followed through with that campaign promise to offer a public option health insurance plan like Medicare
instead we get the quarter ass version of all his campaign promises if at all
According to your link, he did try to follow through and got shut down in the Senate:
President Barack Obama envisioned a public option as a key part of his health insurance reform law, but gave up on it during negotiations with opponents in Congress. As a presidential candidate, Biden proposed adding the public option as a way to fix the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act.
But for all the attention the public option got during the campaign, it has faded from the Democratic agenda on Capitol Hill.
With Democrats barely controlling the Senate, and universal opposition to his agenda from GOP senators, Biden has had to rely on a special procedure known as “budget reconciliation” to bypass the filibuster and pass his agenda.
Check out this video interview of his administration working behind the scenes to negotiate the public option with the Senate. The part you need to see starts at 1:25. In the end, it just didn’t have Senate support.
EDIT: Adding this video interview of his administration talking about working behind the scenes to negotiate the public option with the Senate. Relevant portion starts at 1:25.
Where in that quote does it say that Biden tried anything to try to follow through on the public option?
The next two paragraphs go on to say (emphasis mine):
The Biden administration has used the reconciliation process to pursue two bills: a coronavirus and economic relief bill called the American Rescue Plan, which passed on a party-line vote weeks after Biden was inaugurated, and a safety net expansion bill known as the Build Back Better bill, which is currently pending in the Senate following passage in the House.
Neither of these bills included the public option.
The only thing Biden has done about the public option is make promises he had no intention of even pursuing, let alone keeping.
Check out this video interview of his administration working behind the scenes to negotiate the public option with the Senate. The part you need to see starts at 1:25. In the end, it just didn’t have Senate support.
The first time he was asked about the public option, he pivoted to talking about the American Rescue Plan, which wasn’t the public option. The second time he was asked, he said that Biden supports the public option, that Becerra had worked in the past on the public option during the Obama administration, and claimed that Biden intended to work with the senate to get the public option. This work did not go on to actually happen. The rest of the video is Becerra describing the public option.
Your video does not do what you claim it does.
As for the “behind the scenes” claim, I have no reason at all to believe it.
A public option would be impossible to pass through reconciliation rules. All that process can do is allocate money. A law creating a public insurance option would need to be passed the normal way, which means controlling the house at the same time as either getting a super majority in the senate or ending the filibuster. Or you know alternatively, even a small minority of Republicans not being horrible and breaking a filibuster. They wouldn’t even have to vote for it, just agree to allow debate to end so a vote can go through.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)
So all he’s done is make promises.
I can do that just as effectively right now sitting on the commode.
Ah, so you wouldn’t support any politician, unless they are a dictator who will unilaterally impose their laws and ideas without Congress, got it.
Save some hate for the Republicans, the main reason we don’t have a public option. Sure you can find a rare democrat here or there that doesn’t support it. But then you have a republican party where 100% of the individuals are against it, and won’t even let it be voted on in the senate.
“All he’s done is make promises.” Take this hyperbolic, bad-faith nonsense elsewhere. He’s about done all he can within the bounds of current laws, and helped get some things through congress that could fit into the reconciliation process. Again, not a dictator.
I agree they should do more, but that’s going to involve getting republicans in congress out of the way of progress somehow. Whether that’s electing enough democrats to over ride them (unlikely with the urban rural divide and how we elect senators), convincing even a handful of republicans to step down and not support a filibuster, or ending the filibuster entirely (which I think is most likely thing to happen, but wouldn’t make sense to do until they have clear house and senate majorities and could actually do something good with it).
Ah, so you wouldn’t support any politician, unless they are a dictator who will unilaterally impose their laws and ideas without Congress, got it.
No, I just won’t give Biden credit for a mere promise he hasn’t tried to do anything about. He simply hasn’t attempted to fulfill his campaign promise regarding the public option.
“Fait accompli” is not French for “campaign promise.”
So now politicians should not state their policies on any issue, unless they are somehow prescient, know the exact makeup that congress will have when they are elected, and what exactly will end up getting through or not? I would like to know where people stand on things, and him continuing to state support for a public option is important, even if it’s not possible for him to enact it by himself. And people have already pointed out to you he did make attempts. Biden is not the reason we don’t have a public option.
without a cooperative congress, that cannot happen. you want a public option? you want full single-payer tax funded comprehensive health care for all? student debt relief? no-cost public school lunches? ubi? higher taxes on the wealthy?
you already know what to do. congress needs to go hard left–and stay there. vote progressive in primaries, vote democrat in generals. every. single. time.
not able to vote
my right to vote was taken due to laws and policies crafted by politicians over the years
one of those politicians are now running the country with a prosecutor
just because your vote has been ‘taken’ away, doesn’t mean your voice has been. you can still play a role in shaping local policies–including at the state level, where your right to vote can be restored.
how?
such as contacting the local newspaper that has been bought by a corporation in another state with their own shareholder interests and who never responds to questions or anything else even a request for a story? fail
trying to rally a grassroots movement to bring awareness to issues? fail
when the populace is so tamped down by laws, policies, and militarized police forces to keep em’ in line (looking at you cop city in georgia) there is will be no change
Lets socialize pharmaceutical production these fucks are literally killing us and holding back life saving treatments for corporate profits.
Yeah, IDK if helping less than 1% of Americans is enough. If it makes sense for insulin why doesn’t it make sense for every other drug that big pharma has exorbitant prices for?
Well, any actual path from here to there can only be traveled one step at a time.
