Bob Shared His Story About High Insulin Prices At White House Event Highlighting President Biden’s Work To Lower Health Care Cost
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patient advocate Bob Parant, a Medicare beneficiary who lives with type 1 diabetes, shared his story about the high price of insulin at the White House today where he introduced and thanked President Biden for passing the Inflation Reduction Act and lowering insulin costs for Medicare beneficiaries. The president delivered remarks about lowering health care costs through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law last month.
Bob, a New Yorker who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 50 years ago, takes Humalog – which costs him $300 out-of-pocket every 90 days. He explained that the price of insulin has increased by over 600 percent in the last 20 years.
“Insulin cost is inhumane,” Bob shared ahead of introducing the president. “But thanks to President Biden and Democrats in Congress, the reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act will save me, and millions others, hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars a year…The Inflation Reduction Act will allow me to do things I cherish – be able to travel to see my grandkids and also worry less about depleting my retirement savings.”
The provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act will, for the first time, allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, curb drug company price gouging by limiting annual price increases to the rate of inflation, cap out-of-pocket costs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries at $2,000 in 2025, and limit monthly insulin copays to $35 per month for Medicare enrollees starting next year.
“From now on, if you’re on Medicare and you have diabetes, the cost of insulin can be capped at $35 a month per prescription – Bob just told you what a difference it’d make and is gonna make in his life,” said President Biden at today’s speech. “We pay more for prescription drugs than any other advanced nation in the world and there’s no good reason for it. For years, many of us have been trying to fix this problem. But for years, for years, Big Pharma has stood in the way. Not this year – this year the American people won and Big Pharma lost.”
“We are grateful to Bob for sharing his story today and to President Biden for continuously elevating the voices of patients,” said Merith Basey, Patients For Affordable Drug Now’s executive director. “Beginning in 2023, millions of people like Bob who are on Medicare will begin to feel some much needed relief as monthly insulin copays are capped as a result of the historic Inflation Reduction Act. Rest assured that we will keep fighting to lower drug prices for everyone – including the uninsured and those who have insurance in the private sector.”
Watch Bob’s remarks and the president’s full speech here.
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