Baldwin-backed bill would cap prescription costs for millions of Wisconsinites
The Capping Prescription Costs Act would limit out-of-pocket annual costs to $2,000 for 173 million Americans.
A new bill co-sponsored by Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin could mean significant savings on prescription drug costs for millions of Wisconsinites.
Baldwin is facing a competitive reelection race this November. Her likely opponent is millionaire Republican bank executive Eric Hovde.
The Capping Prescription Drug Costs Act, introduced in the Senate on July 11, would limit out-of-pocket prescription drug costs to $2,000 annually for each individual and $4,000 annually for each family. According to a fact sheet from the office of lead sponsor Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), the cap would apply to 173 million Americans under age 65 who have private insurance policies. It noted that 37% of adults in the United States struggle to afford all of their prescriptions.
“No Wisconsinite should have to choose between putting food on the table or getting the prescriptions they need to stay healthy,” Baldwin said in a statement emailed to the Wisconsin Independent. “I am proud of our progress in taking on big drug companies, but our work isn’t done and we need to provide relief for working families.”
In 2022, Baldwin voted for President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which limited out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for all recipients of Medicare Part D to $2,000 annually starting in 2025 and capped their costs for insulin at $35 per month.
Hovde opposed that law, denouncing it in an August 2022 radio interview as a “big, ugly bill.”
The new bill would bring that $2,000 cap to about 3.1 million Wisconsinites with employer-sponsored insurance plans and to the more than 221,000 enrolled in a plan through the individual marketplace, according to data from the the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
A July 2024 Public Policy Polling survey found 89% of Wisconsin voters agreed that “lowering prescription drug prices and health insurance premiums is an important way to help people afford the cost of living.”
