Insulin Just Got Cheaper Thanks To Biden. Will Voters Take Notice?

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Lots of Americans say they are prepared to vote against President Joe Biden in November. Among the many reasons seems to be a persistent belief that Biden has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” (according to an ABC-Washington Post poll from the summer), or that his policies have actually hurt people (according to a Wall Street Journal poll from last month).

I wonder how many of these Americans know what Biden has done to make health care more affordable ― and, more specifically, what he’s done to bring down the costs of insulin.

Insulin is the life-sustaining drug on which millions of Americans with diabetes depend, in order to process sugars they cannot naturally. And its affordability, or lack thereof, is a case study in the long-standing failures of our health care system. The list price for a month’s supply of the drug can be in the hundreds of dollars , which is five or even 10 times the price in other peer countries. Something like a quarter of all Americans who need insulin have traditionally struggled to pay for it, with serious and sometimes fatal consequences .

One reason is that so many people don’t have health insurance, leaving them exposed to the full price if they can’t find some sort of private assistance program. Fixing that has been a goal of the Democratic Party since the days of Harry Truman, and Biden has done his part to help realize it ― first as President Barack Obama’s wingman in 2009 and 2010 when Democrats were crafting and enacting the Affordable Care Act , and more recently during his own presidency, when he worked with Democrats to make the law’s financial assistance more