Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas resident David Berman’s daily routine has been consistent for nearly his entire life: It revolves around taking his daily doses of insulin.
Prior to each meal and before going to bed each night, the retired attorney takes a dose of insulin to treat his Type 1 diabetes. In between, the transplant from the Boston area who has called Southern Nevada home for the past 23 years charts his blood glucose levels to ensure he’s properly handling the ailment.
Berman saw immediate relief come earlier this year after a section of the Inflation Reduction Act went into effect, allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of several popular prescription medications and capping the price of a month’s supply of insulin at $35.
Now, Berman said Tuesday, he is paying about $70 per month for his insulin, compared with $140 per month he was paying this time a year ago. That adds up to about $840 in annual savings.
“I was an immediate beneficiary of the drop in insulin rates,” Berman said at a roundtable discussion about prescription drug affordability at Roseman University in Henderson. “We were paying the $70 a month (per dose) and starting at the beginning of the year, $35 a month. That adds up.”
The roundtable was led by Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., who was joined by Meena Seshamani, director of the Center for Medicare, whose administration operates the public health insurer. Seshamani said prior to the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, insulin was one of the many critical medications subjected to volatile price fluctuations. Some Medicare recipients, she said, were paying upward of $400 per month for their insulin.
“If this had been in place in 2020,” Seshamani said, “that would have saved people in Nevada $4.7 million. That’s real money for real people.”
Seshamani said it is common for health officials to hear from patients that costly prescription drug prices lead to rationing of medication or a refusal to take medication over concerns it would cause financial ruin. To combat that, federal lawmakers are turning their focus on controlling insulin prices for non-Medicare recipients, which make up the bulk of diabetic Americans.
Rosen said Tuesday she signed on as a cosponsor last week to the Insulin Act of 2023, which would eliminate deductibles and other “cost-sharing requirements” related to insulin and cap its price at $35 for a 30-day supply for private-sector health insurance beneficiaries. She joins a bipartisan group of senators — five Republicans and five Democrats — cosponsoring the act.
“It’s the most important thing to everyone, for their own health and the health of people they love, to be able to afford them,” Rosen said. “And not having to make that choice between your rent or your food or rationing your medication or not taking it at all.”
Another cost-saving measure of the Inflation Reduction Act that Rosen and Seshamani touted was a provision starting next year that will cap out-of-pocket costs for Medicare recipients at $2,000 per year.
That’s especially good news for Margy Feldman, a Henderson resident whose husband last year was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Fortunately, Feldman said Tuesday, that form of cancer is treatable with an oral dosage of chemotherapy. But their current insurance plan only partially pays for the treatment, leaving the Feldmans on the hook for $3,000 each month.
In another stroke of good fortune, Feldman said, they were granted a request for financial assistance to pay for their share of the chemo. But that option is likely not on the table for many others faced with similar situations, she added.
“It took me several weeks, all kinds of paperwork, all the follow-ups to do,” Feldman said. But I just thought about the many people in our community that don’t have an advocate or somebody to argue or even ask the question ‘What else can we do?’ ”
Stresses over access to health care can often arise as an issue, Rosen said. Feldman told the panel she hasn’t been able to focus on her own mental and physical well-being since her husband’s diagnosis.
And at times, it catches up.
“It’s a debilitating amount of stress that it causes,” Feldman said. “Just hearing the word cancer, the diagnosis is so frightening.”
Disease is something that affects everyone, regardless of background or political affiliation, Rosen said. And that’s why it’s up to lawmakers to find some sort of consensus on legislation that will help the country.
“We ought to be able to find ways to allow businesses to grow and still take care of people,” Rosen said. “I believe we can do both.”
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