Will you get insulin-cost relief from the inflation bill? Not if you have private insurance

Cost relief may be coming for Medicare recipients who use insulin. But a proposed $35 monthly cap for those with private insurance is no longer part of the Senate’s Inflation Relief Act, which goes before the House on Friday.

The cost of insulin, which is used by people with diabetes to control their blood sugar, has become a political issue, with politicians like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders decrying how much Americans pay compared to people in other countries.

The highest cost for insulin is borne by those who pay for insulin themselves, either because they are enrolled in high-deductible insurance plans or because they don’t have insurance at all. The bill never offered them relief.

But an out-of-pocket cap identical to that for Medicare was stripped from the bill for those with private insurance because Democrats are trying to pass the bill by a simple majority through the reconciliation process. That requires Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough to vet the provisions. She said most of the health-related features were fine, but the insulin proposal for those who have private insurance, not Medicare, violated the Byrd provision, which says that issues “extraneous to the federal budget” cannot be passed by simple majority through reconciliation.