The Senate parliamentarian removed a $35 insulin cap and Senate Democrats failed to reincorporate the measure into the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled that a $35 insulin cap violated the rules on budgetary reconciliation.
The Senate moved to override the ruling and include the provision in the bill. However, it failed 57-43, falling just three votes short of the number necessary to overrule the parliamentarian.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK), voted to overrule the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling on the insulin cap.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and other Senate Democrats slammed Republicans for failing to reinclude the provision in the bill.
“Republicans just voted to strike a $35 monthly out-of-pocket cap on insulin for Americans with private insurance out of our bill. Republicans’ pledges on lowering insulin costs are all empty promises,” Wyden said.
“Republicans just voted AGAINST our $35/month insulin cap for patients on private insurance, forcing countless patients to continue rationing their insulin—putting their lives at risk,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said on the Senate floor. “Everyone should be able to afford the lifesaving medicine they need. This is shameful.”
Ironically for Senate Democrats, this measure would not be necessary if President Joe Biden had not suspended President Donald Trump’s executive order to lower the price of insulin and epinephrine. The Trump executive order was set to go into effect right after Biden moved into the White House.
Despite the Democrats’ attacks on Trump’s healthcare agenda, the 45th president also moved to cut red tape at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Notably, under Trump, prescription drug prices fell in aggregate for the first time in half a century, as Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak documented.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.