Republicans in the Senate succeeded in having a provision that would cap the cost of insulin in private insurance plans stripped from the wide-ranging economic, environmental and tax bill being debated on the floor, CNN reports.
After appealing to the Senate Parliamentarian to exclude the price cap in general, the Parliamentarian ruled that the provision should cover only Medicare and Medicaid programs and could not be applied to non-governmental insurance programs. With that, it would require 60 votes to be included in the bill, and 43 GOP Republicans voted to allow private insurance companies to price-gorge diabetics reliant on insulin.
The insulin price cap for Medicare programs caps out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 dollars per month; life-saving insulin through private insurance plans can cost patients $100 or more per month.