SPRINGFIELD—Legislation on insulin prescription co-pays passed in the House of Representatives, 100-13-1.
State Representative Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) voted against SB667 and released the following statement:
“This is another Springfield example of a fake solution to a very real problem faced by Illinois residents in need of prescription insulin and other life-saving drugs. To be clear, this bill does not apply to the vast majority of Illinois insurance plans, and therefore, very few will actually benefit. Neither does it address the underlying costs of the insulin. The costs to provide these drugs will simply be shifted—either by premium and/or deductible increases, or reduced coverage/availability—but away from the co-pay.
The passage of this bill does, however, create a self-congratulatory headline for candidates running in 2020: ‘Look at us, we’re doing something about expensive insulin co-pays!’ they’ll proclaim, as perhaps 90% of Illinois insurance plans will see no changes, even after the effective date of January 2021.
Furthermore, the public should understand that the Illinois Senate amended the bill so that taxpayer-funded state and local public employee health insurance plans—including the ones offered to the lawmakers themselves—would be included in the legislation for their own insulin prescription co-pays to be capped. Again, the vast majority of Illinois residents do not have access to these plans, and this legislation will not cap their insulin prescription co-pays.”
Lastly, some of these life-saving drugs are very expensive, and for those who do need help paying for their prescriptions, information on financial assistance programs are available at https://insulinhelp.org and for other drugs, https://medicineassistancetool.org/en.
