WASHINGTON (AP) – Hardly a day goes by that President Joe Biden doesn't mention insulin prices.
He has pushed for a $35 drug price cap for Americans on Medicare in speeches at the White House, on the campaign trail, and at non-medical events around the country. His re-election team flooded the airwaves in battleground states with ads mentioning this in English and Spanish.
All of this seems to add up to have far-reaching political and economic implications. The reality is more complicated.
As Biden's campaign seeks to emphasize his advantage over Republican nominee Donald Trump, he often exaggerates how much people subject to price caps used to pay for insulin. It's also unclear whether the number of Americans supported will be enough to swing the November election, even in close states where the number of votes could be in the thousands.
Drew Altman, president and CEO of KFF, a nonprofit organization that researches medical issues, said, “This is more of a political signal in a campaign than it is to show people the benefits of capping insulin.'' Communication is important.” “This is a way to concretely demonstrate the fact that you are a candidate for the medical profession.”
Many of the people benefiting from the price cap were already getting insulin at a discount, were already Biden supporters, or both. Meanwhile, people who need discounted insulin can't get it because they don't have Medicare or private health insurance.
The Biden campaign has emphasized the success of the president's efforts to lower insulin prices, comparing him to Trump, who initially ran for president promising to lower drug prices, but took only limited action after taking office. Contrasting.
“This is a powerful and visible contrast,” said Charles Rutbach, a spokesman for the Biden campaign. “And this is something we are campaigning for early, aggressively and across our coalition.”
full price reduction
About 8.4 million people in the United States use insulin to control their blood sugar levels, and more than 1 million people have type 1 diabetes, which can lead to death if they don't take insulin regularly. The White House announced that nearly 4 million seniors will be eligible for the new lower prices.
The price cap for Medicare beneficiaries is part of the Inflation Control Act, which originally capped insulin at $35 for everyone with health insurance. When it passed in 2022, Congressional Republicans scaled it back to apply only to seniors.
The Biden administration also announced agreements with drugmakers Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly that will cap insulin copays at $35 for people with private insurance. These account for more than 90% of the US insulin market.
But Biden has always said that many people used to pay up to $400 a month, which is an exaggeration. A Department of Health and Human Services study released in December 2022 found that people with diabetes who are enrolled in Medicare or have private insurance pay an average of $452 annually instead of monthly.
The high prices cited by the president primarily affected people without health insurance. But thanks to the Obama administration's signature health care law and President Biden's aggressive efforts to increase the frequency of coverage for those who qualify, the rate of uninsured has fallen to record lows.
In effect, one of the administration's policy initiatives is undermining the economic arguments for another.
However, the efforts did not reach everyone.
Yanet Martinez lives in Phoenix and supports Biden. She doesn't work and she doesn't have health insurance, but thanks to her deep discount at her local clinic, she can get insulin for about $16 a month. .
The lower price only applies if her husband, a landscaper, has no income above the monthly income limit. If she did, her insulin could jump to more than $500, she said.
“I've heard that insulin prices are going down. I've never seen it,” said Martinez, 42. There are a lot of people who can't afford it and that makes the situation very difficult. ”
Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would make the $35 insulin cap universal, even for people without health insurance. On the other hand, he said, what has been accomplished by Medicare beneficiaries and drug companies agreeing to lower prices is “literally saving lives and saving people money.”
“This is good policy because it puts the people at the center, not politics,” Warnock said, noting that when he traveled to Georgia, the heart of the battleground state, in November, he saw people “for me or for me.'' Thank you for doing this for one of my friends.'' family. “
That includes people like Tommy Marshall, 56, a financial services consultant in Atlanta who has health insurance. At the age of 45 he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and is injected with fast-acting insulin several times daily. Last November, he paid about $250 for four to eight weeks' worth of medication, but the price was cut in half in February after Novo's Nordisk agreed to lower prices.
“If I were his political advisor, I would tell (Biden) to talk about it all the time,” said the lifelong Democrat, who works with advocacy groups like Protect Our Care Georgia to lower insulin prices. said Marshall, who has long been a public defender of the.
Marshall said price caps have “meaningful emotional resonance” and could sway a close election, but added: “You're talking about people between the ages of 18 and 65.” He also admitted that. I can imagine there are probably two or three other problems before this one. ”
“Maybe they're some kind of wary person,” he added. “This might shake them up.”
One of Biden's key issues
Biden re-election campaign pollster Jeff Garlin said the insulin cap is one of the president's top-performing issues. He said the data was “clear, consistent and overwhelming.”
Rich Fiesta, executive director of the Retired Americans Alliance, which supports Biden, said the insulin cap is a big issue for the president among older voters.
“Believe it or not, drug costs are a very important factor for people who are persuasive, and for people who are still persuasive,” Fiesta said. The group has 4.4 million members and advocates for the health and economic security of seniors.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions. But Theo Merkel, a senior researcher at the conservative Paragon Health Research Institute, countered that lowering insulin prices was an example of a “policy tailored to an issue,” not the other way around.
Chancellor Merkel, who was President Trump's health policy adviser, said manufacturers that have been making insulin for years would have more leverage to secure higher prices from insurance companies, so they would cap the amount insureds would pay. He said he would prefer to have one.
The president's approval ratings on health care are among the highest on a variety of issues, but 42% of U.S. adults still approve of Biden's handling of health care, according to a February poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center. 55% disapprove. For public relations research.
In an independent poll conducted in December, KFF found that 59% of U.S. adults said Democrats supported health care affordability, even though only 26% of respondents in the same poll said they knew. 39% of Republicans say they believe the US is doing a better job of addressing affordability issues. Regarding the price cap on insulin.
“Politically speaking, the Democrats and Biden have an advantage on health care. They're pushing for it,” Altman said.
