Bipartisan Senate bill to cap insulin for Americans at $35 has new momentum
A bipartisan group of senators is resurfacing legislation to cap many American patients’ insulin costs at $35 a month — the INSULIN Act of 2026 — reviving a push that...
By Fox News · Fox News
A bipartisan group of senators is resurfacing legislation to cap many American patients’ insulin costs at $35 a month — the INSULIN Act of 2026 — reviving a push that previously stalled. The bill co-authored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Susan Collins, R-Maine, Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and John Kennedy, R-La., would bar group and individual health plans from imposing deductibles on selected insulin products and could not charge more than $35 for a 30-day supply starting in plan year 2027. Beginning in 2028, patients would pay the lesser of $35 or 25% of the negotiated net price. Congress had already mandated a Medicare-only cap of $35 in 2022, and President Donald Trump 's long-running agenda to lower prescription medicine costs gives the effort some momentum before the 2026 midterms, where Collins' seat could be targeted for a Democrat flip amid the very narrow Republican Senate majority (53-47). SENATE QUIETLY WORKS ON BIPARTISAN OBAMACARE FIX AS HEALTHCARE CLIFF NEARS "We are the long-time chairs of the Senate Diabetes Caucus, and one of our top priorities is to make insulin more affordable," Collins said in a Senate hearing last week. "Our INSULIN Act would impose out-of-pocket limits for patients with commercial insurance, tackle commercial pharmacy benefit managers, and ensure that patients are the ones who are benefiting from the savings that they negotiate, and encourage biosimilar competition in order to lower list prices." The bill, first introduced in 2023, has been reworked at Kennedy and Warnock's urging to include some work to provide capped insulin prices even for the uninsured. "Our bill also includes provisions to help uninsured Americans access affordable insulin ," Collins continued. "Just this week, I met with a young woman who, a few years ago, ended up in the hospital because she was stretching out her insulin, not taking as much as she was prescribed, because she simply couldn't afford the cost." REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: GOP TARGETS AFFORDABILI…