CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There’s a bipartisan effort underway at the statehouse to cap costs for life-saving insulin.
Delegates Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, and Jordan Hill, R-Nicholas, are behind a bill that would cap a 30-day supply of insulin at $25.
The Monday news conference hosted by the delegates included people sharing their personal stories about how the high cost of insulin and increasing co-payments required to get the drug.
“It varies depends on what kind of insurance you have,” Fleischauer said. “But, these people pay hundreds per month and we want to put a cap on that, they have a cap in Colorado, they have a cap Illinois and we want to be the third state to do that.”
Jamie Salai is a Morgantown resident and has a boyfriend with Type I diabetes and attended the event.
“I knew they were high, but I wasn’t sure how high they were,” Salai said. “And hearing all these stories about how high they are, something has to be done.”
Fleischauer said the stories are similar and numerous.
“One gentleman we talked to from Greenbrier County, his co-pay when he was 41 was $78, now it’s $647 per month,” Fleischauer said. “And that’s not his premium. who knows what his premium is.”
Fleischauer said when you add up the cost of test strips, pumps, needles and drugs it’s very expensive to be a diabetic and this is way to relieve some of that burden on people.
Fleischauer helped organize a trip to Canada last month to buy insulin. There have been news conferences to highlight the high prices in Morgantown, Beckley and Huntington.
Between 2012 and 2016 the cost of insulin nearly doubled, during the same period the cost of Humira has gone from $1,940 to $4,338. The cost of 36 other popular prescription drugs has increased more than 50 percent during the same period.
If the Fleischauer-Hill supported bill is approved West Virginia would become the third state in the country to enact caps on insulin costs.
MetroNews Statewide Correspondent Brad McElhinny contributed to this story.