Colorado Becomes First State to Cap the Staggering Price of Insulin

In a first for the country, Colorado just passed legislation putting a cap on the soaring price of insulin.

This week Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill aimed at stopping pharmaceutical companies from charging obscene amounts for the medication.

More than 30 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes. That’s over 9% of the total U.S. population. And 7 million of them require insulin. Currently, diabetics in the U.S. can be charged as much as $1,000 for just one month’s supply of insulin—a cost that leads some to ration its use, leading to further health problems and even death.

According to The Right Care Alliance:

“[M]anufacturers Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk mark up the price as much as 5,000 percent and there are seven million Americans with diabetes that have no choice but to pay.

The price is so high that people are doing desperate things to get by, like using expired insulin, relying on crowdfunding to pay their bills, or taking less insulin than they need in an effort to ration their supplies.”

As the The Mind Unleashed previously reported, a group of diabetics from Minnesota struggling to cover the “astronomical prices for insulin,” have been crossing the border into Canada to procure affordable insulin. It’s obvious that Americans are struggling to cover the costs of this life-saving medication.

Thankfully, the right people in Colorado took note of the plight of more than 400,000 Colorado residents and actually decided to do something about it. Thanks to HB19-1216, residents of the state will not have to pay more than $100 per month for insulin.

The bill goes one step further and calls for an investigation of “the pricing of prescription insulin drugs” and a report submitted to the governor by November 2020.

While the new law won’t go into full effect until January 1, 2020, Colorado is being hailed for passing the groundbreaking legislation that, in no uncertain terms, will save lives.