The incoming MAGA Congress may soon raise the costs of insulin

Get the Point!

In October of 2018, I had just completed a two week multiple defendant murder trial in Tallahassee and due to what I assumed was exhaustion, I was weary, feverish, and for reasons that I did not yet understand, could not drink enough liquids to satisfy an unquenchable thirst.

Photo of me sitting next to my client, Vicki Strickland, in late September of 2018…

To make matters worse, Hurricane Michael, a Category 3 storm in the Gulf of Mexico that soon turned to a deadly Category 5, was bearing down on North Florida and instead of making a run for it, I hunkered down in Tallahassee and prayed for the best!

While the Hurricane ultimately veered away from Tallahassee and devastated Panama City and Marianna about an hour to our west, my exhaustion and fever were soon joined by a need to urinate seemingly every few minutes! It was at that point that I knew something was off; fearing that I may be suffering from prostate cancer—the same disease that claimed the lives of my father, Charles Sr., and his younger brother, Ronald Hobbs, I proceeded to the emergency room to learn that it was not cancer—but diabetes!

Unlike some men, I've never had any problem with going to a doctor or taking medicine, probably due to the fact that I grew up with asthma—and was diagnosed with hypertension during my sophomore year at Morehouse College (back when I was still in good shape and far from what doctors call "morbidly obese"). So it was a surprise that morning at the ER when the attending doctor told me that he had NEVER seen anyone drive themselves and walk into his facility with a blood sugar level in excess of 900 (which mine was); the doctor added that usually when glucose levels are that high, the person is in a coma after suffering a massive stroke! Indeed, I was blessed and fortunate beyond measure to be alert and alive…

As I spent the next five or so days in the hospital, like any newly diagnosed diabetic, I learned to deal with the rigors of thrice daily insulin shots. Later that week, when I was discharged and went to my nearby CVS to pick up my two insulin prescriptions, I was rather shocked to learn that the price was…wait for it…$682.34! A price, mind you, that remained the same until my A1C levels lowered to the point where I no longer needed the shots (about a year later).

With all praises to God, I was blessed to be able to pay for the medicines but for months afterwards, I couldn't get the following question out of my head: "what happens to people who CAN'T afford to pay $600+ for their insulin?" Each time I pondered that thought, I remembered something my father very stoically said to me following one of his chemotherapy sessions at the M.D. Anderson Clinic in Houston: "Son, if I didn't have good insurance, I would have been dead from this cancer a long time ago..."

As the sun sets on President Joe Biden's one term in office, of the many accomplishments that his administration can boast about, the one thing that I will never forget is his signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law in 2023 and with it, a cap on insulin for Medicare and Medicaid at $35.

True to form, Biden’s predecessor and soon to be successor, Donald Trump, took to social media in 2023 to discredit him by falsely claiming that he was solely responsible for the $35 cap. What Trump mendaciously omitted is the fact that in 2020, his administration established a VOLUNTARY and TIME LIMITED "Senior Savings Model" that allowed for at least one of the typically two (or three) types of insulin dosages to be $35—meaning, the other one or two doses continued to cost several hundreds of dollars per vial.

On the contrary, President Biden's plan (via the Inflation Reduction Act) required that ALL Medicare/Medicaid plans cap ALL insulin vials at $35! This mandatory change was so groundbreaking that the three leading insulin manufacturers, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi, cut their prices ranging from 65 percent to 80 percent, thus providing a similar price break for diabetics holding private insurance or no insurance at all!

Now, those pharmaceutical manufacturers knew long ago that the cost of producing insulin is relatively cheap, but as is typically the case in America's profit driven health system, they charged me $682.34 back in the day—and others the same or worse—simply because they could get away with it…and smile…during shareholders meetings as they celebrated their unmitigated lucre!

Still, there are millions of people suffering from diabetes across the 50 states, as shown in the chart below. But what's absolutely mind boggling to me is that there are legions of middle and lower class Americans who gleefully voted for Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans in Congressional and Senate races who very well will soon find themselves laughing about how they "own the libs" and are about to "deport the illegals," all the while signing their own death certificates when they realize that they cannot afford to pay for those insulin shots!

Lest we forget that earlier this year, the House Republican Study Committee proposed a FULL repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act! While President-elect Trump has yet to say whether he will support such a repeal, the fact that his "shadow" cabinet of billionaire oligarchs, led by Elon Musk, has already begun threatening Republicans who compromise on the fiscal spending ceiling is proof enough that in the name of "government efficiency," the next two years will see slashing of any prior acts or programs that help middle, working, and lower class people to, quite literally, just survive!

Stay tuned…