Let's talk about how Democrats have brought down the cost of this lifesaving drug, because somebody really should.

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).

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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.

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    306·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
      126·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        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.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
          23·
          10 months ago

          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.

      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
        43·
        10 months ago

        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)