Political Quotes

“I am pleased to rise this evening with my colleague and dear friend Senator Jeanne Shaheen to discuss the compelling need to lower the cost of insulin for Americans with diabetes by reforming the system for getting the drug from the manufacturer to the consumer and by capping the out-of-pocket price. I want to commend Senator Shaheen for her longstanding devotion and hard work on this issue. For her, this is both a matter of policy and personal, as she has described. And I could have no better cochair of the Senate Diabetes Caucus than my colleague from New Hampshire. We are focused on policies that will improve the lives of those who are living with diabetes. Building on our past efforts, we have introduced a new bill, the Improving Needed Safeguards for Users of Lifesaving Insulin Now--or the INSULIN--Act of 2023. A little background may be useful. As my colleague from New Hampshire has mentioned, when a team of three scientists at the University of Toronto first isolated insulin in 1921, they sold the patent for $1 each to the university--an act intended to ensure that those in need of insulin would always have an affordable access. They explicitly stated that profit was not their goal nor their motive. And yet in recent years, the cost of insulin has soared, and insulin costs have become unaffordable for far too many individuals with diabetes. Between 2007 and 2018, the average list price of insulin increased by 262 percent.…”