President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 7, 2023
President Joe Biden used the bully pulpit during the State of the Union address this week to call for a universal price cap on insulin for all diabetes patients but the proposal is very unlikely to pass the current Congress.
Biden's signature legislative achievement, the Inflation Reduction Act, has capped insulin prices for Medicare recipients at $35 per month but the law does not shield younger diabetes patients with private insurance or without insurance from higher prices.
"Let's finish the job this time. Let's cap the cost of insulin for everybody at $35," Biden told Congress Tuesday night.
As the president spoke, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., called on Congress to pass the Insulin Act which would expand the $35 price cap to people with private insurance. Shaheen co-sponsored the bipartisan legislation with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, last July.
The average price of insulin in the U.S. in 2018 was 10 times higher than the average price in other wealthy nations, according a report from the Rand Corp. in 2021.
Though there's some bipartisan support for a universal insulin price cap, the proposal will face a tough battle and is unlikely to pass in a narrowly divided Congress where Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate and Republicans have tenuous hold on the House.
Even when Democrats controlled both chambers last summer, Senate Republicans managed to kill a measure that would have capped insulin prices at $35 a month for people with private insurance. Should the Senate pass the Insulin Act, it would still face a House that's now in GOP hands.
Rep. Cathy Rodgers of Washington, the Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wasted no time dismissing Biden's proposal in real time, decrying government price caps on insulin across the board as "socialist" and a "federal mandate" that hurts competition.
"It's time for the President to abandon his socialist price-schemes and work across the aisle to make insulin products more affordable without jeopardizing insulin competition and innovation," Rodgers said in statement released during the president's address Tuesday night.