WASHINGTON — A bipartisan Senate duo is still working to pass a bill to overhaul insulin prices, but the outlook is complicated by the messy drug pricing system, politics and a busy congressional calendar.
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, are working to update a draft bill that would cap consumer copays for insulin in the commercial market and incentivize drugmakers to lower list prices. One of the bill’s provisions capping Medicare copays at $35 a month was enacted as part of the Democrats’ budget bill in August.
But the hurdles that previously stalled the bill remain the same. The policy is complicated. The official cost is expensive. And Republican support is thin.
