The Most Important Word in The Democratic Party Platform for Health Care

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Rachel Madley, who most recently served as health policy adviser to Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), has joined the Center for Health & Democracy (a non-profit I founded) as director of policy and advocacy. She will be a regular contributor to HEALTH CARE un-covered.

- Wendell Potter

This week the Democratic Party released its platform for the 2024 election, and the section on health care proposes changes that would go much further than the measures signed into law during the Biden administration.

Recently enacted legislation caps the price of insulin at $35 a month and ensures that starting next year, Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay no more than $2,000 a year out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. Notably, the official party platform calls for expanding those caps to everyone.

The inclusion of “everyone” is the most important word in the health care section because everyone includes those without insurance. In order to truly stop the suffering and death due to the greed of Big Insurance, Big Pharma and other profit-focused health care companies (including hospitals), people without insurance must be included in any cost-saving measures.

Though the goal is for every American to have health coverage, the current health system has not reached that milestone yet. Lapses in health coverage are unavoidable for many reasons. When people start new jobs, they will likely have a period of uninsurance. When a person gets married and switches to their spouse’s insurance or when someone turns 26 and needs to leave their parents insurance, they will likely have a lapse in health coverage.

Out of the 37.3 million Americans with diabetes, 2 million are uninsured. Out of people with diabetes with private insurance, 1 out of 4 reported at least one gap in health insurance lasting a least 30 days in the past three years. Even if these gaps in coverage are short, for a person dependent on insulin if they do not have it for even a few days they could die.

The same is true for people dependent on many other prescriptions. Including those without insurance in the out-of-pocket caps on drug costs will prevent people experiencing lapses in coverage from going into medical debt or having to ration their medication.

Unfortunately, there are still many people who cannot afford private insurance but do not qualify for Medicaid. Including these patients in the caps on insulin and prescription drug costs would allow them to stay alive until they can get health insurance. Including this community in the caps would in no way incentivize people not to get health insurance. This is because often the prescriptions such as insulin are the minimal care they need to stay alive.

On top of insulin, to get optimal care people with diabetes also need coverage for doctors appointments, insulin pumps, which cost thousands of dollars, and blood glucose meters and continuous glucose monitors that are also costly. The caps on drug costs for everyone, regardless of insurance status, proposed by the Democratic Party would allow people without insurance to survive while we work to get them covered under a health plan.

Finally, people without insurance are the most vulnerable to medication rationing and its deadly consequences. People without insurance who depend on insulin are roughly twice as likely to report they cannot afford their diabetes medication compared to those with insurance.

Being  uninsured – and nearly 30 million of us are – presents countless challenges to people trying to stay healthy. By including those without insurance in the proposed caps on insulin costs and other out-of-pocket drug costs, it will eliminate one barrier this community faces to staying alive.

The Democratic Party platform proposes a bold agenda that will ensure that everyone can afford their medications. More importantly, it envisions a country where no one else dies because they cannot afford their insulin or other medication.

The deaths of Americans we have witnessed due to insulin rationing and other medication costs need to be left in the past as we move toward a future where health care and prescription medications are considered a human right. We can begin to achieve that goal by including everyone, especially people without insurance, in the expanded $35 cap on insulin and $2,000 cap on prescription drugs.