It's About Time

I may have commented before about the outrageous prices that Americans pay for prescription drugs. (Note that, by law, Medicare is not permitted to negotiate drug prices, unlike every other country in the world.) Colorado is finally doing something about it:

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.”

It's a small step, but a step in the right direction. What's more encouraging is this:

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.

Now, if they expand that to include prescription drugs in general, we might begin to see some progress. And just to drive the point home:

Thanks to commenter Doug105 at Joe.My.God.