Viewpoint: All diabetes medications, not just insulin, should be price-capped

Price-capping insulin could have unintended consequences, as lower costs could lead to the drug being prioritized over newer, more effective treatments for diabetes, Michael Rose, MD, writes in The Atlantic. 

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In a Sept. 5 column titled “Lowering the Cost of Insulin Could be Deadly,” Dr. Rose, a senior resident at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says newer drugs are more effective than insulin at treating Type 2 diabetes. 

While insulin is effective at lowering high blood sugar, SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists are better at mitigating the more deadly effects of Type 2 diabetes, like heart attacks and kidney disease, Dr. Rose writes. These drugs are used less often than insulin, Dr. Rose said, because they are more expensive.  

“In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications,” Dr. Rose said. 

Read the full column here.

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