Who the fuck votes against capping the price of insulin?
I mean, seriously, who the fuck?
The issue came up as part of the omnibus Inflation Reduction Act, which the Democrats managed to pass in a rare Sunday session. Most of that act could avoid the filibuster as part of the Senate’s budget reconciliation rules — which is a mechanism to make sure that budget-related bills can pass without being blocked — but members can challenge whether individual portions of a bill are actually budget related.
And so with the provisions to cap the price of insulin at $35.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled that it was not budget related, which ruling was, frankly probably correct.
That allowed Republicans to filibuster the question.
Which they did.
Although seven Republicans voted with Democrats to cap the price of insulin — Senators Bill Cassidy (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Josh Hawley (MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), John Kennedy (LA), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Dan Sullivan (AK) — it wasn’t enough to break the filibuster.
Insulin, by the way, is primarily used by Type 1 diabetics, and is essential to keeping them alive. The drug was invented in 1922 (1922!) by three scientists working out of the Connaught Laboratories in Toronto, Canada. The patent on that sucker expired a long time ago.
So this is not a recently developed medication.
The pharmaceutical industry claims that capping the price of insulin will stifle pharmaceutical innovation. This is so much bullshit, and we all know that it’s so much bullshit. The pharmaceutical industry is awash in money, and we know this because, if you watch the nightly news — and yes, I realize that is something that old people do — four out of five advertisements are for pharmaceutical products.
Also, the price of insulin here is four, five or ten times the cost of insulin in other countries.
Voting against a cap on the price of insulin means that you really just don’t give a crap about the welfare of your constituents.
In the last couple of weeks Republicans have voted against veteran’s health care and against capping the price of insulin.
Maybe they don’t really want to win the midterms after all.
