John Kennedy: 'That's A Special Kind Of Stupid!'

thank you, Senator Kennedy Chairman and thank you to all of our Witnesses, Dr. Kowalski, thank you for giving so much, have you ever heard the expression yada, yada, what does that mean, yada, yada, yada, man, yeah, and it goes on and on. Go on, yeah, we've had so much yada? Yes, thanks for affordable insulin, not from people like you, but from us, who have been nibbling around the edges for years. Dr. Rogers, thank you for giving so much. Let me ask you a question. Do you luckily have health insurance as a government employee? I have hope and he's pretty good, isn't he?

That's pretty good Senator, who do you think needs affordable insulin? Who thinks they need to limit the price of insulin to $30 or more? You are homeless and uninsured, that was it for me. Senator or Dr. Kowalski, well, since you asked the question, I think the person who is least available to pay for it would probably benefit the most. Yes, we have 30 million uninsured people in this country and some of them are also diabetics. Senator Shane and Senator. Collins has a great bill, Senator Warnock, and I also have a bill on insulin, it's called the Affordable Insulin Now Act and we are working closely with myself, with Senator Collins and Senator Shaheen, our bill It would cover everyone, whether you have health insurance or you don't have insurance because a lot of people are left without insurance now.

I know our health insurance companies and God bless them. They're trying to work with us to lower the cost of insulin and they have these programs. call them patient assistance programs, so if you don't have insurance and you can't pay for your insulin, they will work with you, but have you ever tried to apply for one of those programs if any of you, oh my gosh, first? application process the fine print to apply to so much that you could hide a dead body there and no one would ever find it um number two, they send the medication to your doctor, not you, so if you got a job or if you don't you don't have a job, You have to pay the expense of driving to your doctor's office, you will probably have to pay your doctor to get the medication.

I mean, that's a

special

kind

of

stupid

. Just cover these free programs, just cover one or two forms of insulin and get this, yeah, they'll give you, they'll give you cheap insulin, maybe free insulin for a month or three months, okay, better a year and then after that one year, you log in one day and instead of 30 dollars, it's 567.23 and you, oh my gosh, I have to sell blood plasma to be able to afford it. We have to stop nibbling around the edges. We need to be smart enough to figure this out and the cost. I think it could be done for 250 million. a year and I'm not talking about taking out a reverse mortgage in Alaska and borrowing more money.

I'm talking about finding it in our budget at least let me ask you a quick question, you probably don't know the answer I had. look it up, but if I started counting up to a billion right now in 2023 and counted them, listen to this, maybe you'll know the answer. I counted, I counted a number, a second, one, two, three, four five, and I counted all day. and all night and I counted in the shower and I counted between bites of a Pop-Tart for breakfast. I keep counting and counting, how long do you think it would take me to count to a billion?

A long time. I told you you were. smart, it would take me 32 years for a billion, I would be 55, it would be 2055. I wouldn't make it now, you know how big the federal budget is, that's just a billion, folks, the federal budget is six billion. dollars every year and we can't find 200 and 250 million to limit the price of insulin, let's do it right, no more yada yada thanks