A new Colorado law will ensure that those living with diabetes will spend no more than $100 per month on insulin, making it the first state to limit the cost of an increasingly expensive medication millions of Americans rely on.
More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, and some 7.4 million of them must take insulin every day to live, according to the American Diabetes Association. Although insulin was discovered nearly a century ago, costs continue to rise. A January report from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, found the price of an insulin prescription roughly doubled nationwide from 2012 to 2016.
The bill Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed into law Wednesday will take effect in January 2020, the Denver Post reported, capping monthly co-payments and requiring insurance companies to absorb the additional cost. The law does not limit what insulin manufacturers can charge insurers.
