Good News for Diabetics on Insurance

• Author: Jeffrey Simmons
• Posted: 2024-05-21

If you were a diabetic from 2017-2021, you got some serious relief when the price of your medication fell by around two-thirds. You're not allowed to credit "The Former Guy" with that win, but it was a win nevertheless. When the current guy, President Joe Biden took office, prices of insulin immediately jumped back up to the former rates, and have been climbing along with inflation for nearly two years now. For people with good medical insurance, they still feel the sting of this and still have to go out of their own pocket to pay hundreds of dollars every single month for life-saving medication. Just today, Thursday, March 31, the House of Representatives announced a new bill that would cap insulin at $35 per month max for patients who have insurance.

Yes, if this happens, it is going to be a huge win for people who have diabetes. But most people have two questions: 1) What on Earth took so long to get this done? And 2) What was wrong with the Trump policies that already had it even lower than that, for everyone too and not just those on insurance? Well, regardless of where you stand on President Biden and this current administration, you can still freely admit that Biden's policies have placed actual Americans on the back-burner. It's fine to admit that; the Democratic Committee will not show up and take your home away from you. Biden has prioritized things like immigration from other countries, making history with Supreme Court nominations, and funding the defense of Ukraine against Russia. Those are the priorities of Biden and the Democratic government.

Nearly two years into his term, and suspiciously close to the midterm elections, Democrats remembered that they care about sick Americans, out of the blue, and are working on a bill toward your insulin prices. But, of course, only if you have health insurance.

What? Wasn't It Already Cheap?

For the people's true reaction to this, turn off those corporate-owned media channels and go look on social media at actual people (not paid shills with blue check marks) to see what they think. There are millions of people screaming and shouting all over Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that medication prices were already low before Biden took office. Their point: Why are politicians acting like they're doing everyone some favor, right as the elections approach? Medications were already cheap, and just to spite a former President, the political class made them more expensive and caused true suffering in the nation. It really is sickening what America's political class is able to get away with. And not only get away with, mind you, but also get rewarded for. These people gave themselves a 21% raise, two years after a similar raise, yet still have the gall to moralize to you about what's good and bad in America.

Okay, So it Wasn't Trump - Whatever

There were millions of diabetics and millions of people on monthly prescriptions during Trump's presidency who got some serious financial relief. The cost of prescription drugs, including insulin, fell by two-thirds. And all the mass media and politicians can do is bicker about it and claim that it wasn't former President Donald Trump, in fact, but rather just some random market factors. So, fine; insulin dropping in price to a few dollars a month didn't have anything to do with Trump's seven separate executive orders demanding that the price be dropped? Who even really cares at this point? The fact is that the prices were cheaper, until President Joe Biden undid those executive orders on day one of his Presidency.

So, Donald Trump's EOs did not drop the prices, so you can't credit him. But Joe Biden's EOs immediately raised the prices, but you still can't blame him. Those crazy "market factors" with a mind of their own, that just so happen to coincidentally change based on the President's policies! What a wacky world everyone lives in. The truth is that it just doesn't matter. Diabetics don't need insulin as some luxury. Their lives literally depend on it. How about you all shut up with your political bickering and gaslighting for two seconds and do something to help the American people who are suffering from chronic disease and need medication?

Is that really too much to ask out of a political body that is, in theory, supposed to act as employees of the people?