On the recordMarch 31, 2022
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Affordable Insulin Now Act which would cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 per month and help fight the scourge of diabetes. In 2019, as chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, I organized meetings with leading insulin producers to confront them about the strain their prices are putting on the American people. In each of those meetings, I said the same thing; that for millions of Americans, including a disproportionate number of Latinos, access to affordable insulin is a matter of life and death. And for me and many of us, those aren't just numbers. Four months before I graduated from college in 1996, my grandmother died of complications from diabetes. If we fail to bring down the price of insulin, more families will suffer just like mine did. But our responsibility is to all our constituents, not just those with insurance. So I co-sponsored Representative Doggett's amendment to extend the benefits of this bill to the uninsured, and I hope we will make that happen in the days to come. But this bill is an important step forward, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
