Rx: Lauren Underwood’s Lower Insulin Costs Now Act Signed Into Law

Lauren Underwood

Bipartisan Legislation Introduced This Week Part of Final Appropriations Bills Signed Into Law

Just after Midnight on Saturday morning, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood’s political Twitter account sent out the following tweet:

On Tuesday of this past week, Underwood along with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09) and Congressmen Brett Guthrie (R, KY-02), and Mike Kelly (R, PA-16) introduced H.R. 5444, which was labeled in press releases as the “Lower Insulin Costs Now Act”.

With the flurry of activities to pass the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 appropriations/spending/funding bills to avert a government shutdown today, budget negotiations concluded early this past week, and all appropriations bills were approved by both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Trump.

To be clear, H.R. 5444 was not signed into law, but the language in the legislation was included in H.R. 1865, one of the three appropriations bills signed into law on Friday.

To our knowledge, this is Congresswoman Underwood’s first legislation she sponsored which became law through, albeit through the appropriations process.

Many new laws, as part of the appropriations bills legislation, were established and they’ll become apparent in the coming weeks.

In addition to the insulin legislation, the minimum age to purchase tobacco/vaping products was raised to 21 through this week’s flurry of completing FY2020 appropriations/government funding bills.

And the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1790) established the United States Space Force, the sixth branch of the United States Military.

External link:

Underwood Tuesday, 12/17, press release introducing the legislation: https://underwood.house.gov/media/press-releases/underwood-schakowsky-guthrie-kelly-introduce-new-bipartisan-legislation-lower


Comments

Rx: Lauren Underwood’s Lower Insulin Costs Now Act Signed Into Law — 16 Comments

  1. The Underwood legislation may be a hoax.

    FDA wants to reclassify insulin as a biologic instead of a drug, to increase competition.

    “Commissioner Gottlieb said the FDA will recharacterize insulin as a biologic instead of a drug, in 2020.  This regulatory change should help drugmakers make biosimilar insulins available to people living with diabetes. He criticized some drug companies who he accused of using FDA regulations to block other companies from obtaining samples of their patented products, which makes it impossible for biosimilar drugs from being developed.”
    .
    https://www.umassmed.edu/dcoe/news–events/umass-diabetes-news/2018/December/fda-insulin-2018/

  2. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1192940170896334&id=100005410864001
    .
    Underwood’s insulin plan was a hoax!

    The FDA action makes insulin cheaper by allowing for more competition.

    The last minute Underwood plan is a propaganda grab for publicity.

    Underwood is a #GloryHog.

    Underwood will take credit for anything anytime anywhere.

    Just the opposite of what Underwood says!

    Underwood said: “In December 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidance to clarify the implementation of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, which could effectively block FDA approval of applications for lower-cost insulins. ”
    THAT IS A LIE!

    FDA said: “Commissioner Gottlieb said the FDA will recharacterize insulin as a biologic instead of a drug, in 2020. This regulatory change should help drugmakers make biosimilar insulins available to people living with diabetes. He criticized some drug companies who he accused of using FDA regulations to block other companies from obtaining samples of their patented products, which makes it impossible for biosimilar drugs from being developed.”
    LAUREN UNDERWOOD IS AN OUTRIGHT LIAR AND HOAXER!

    You can read the FDA statement yourself:
    .
    https://www.umassmed.edu/dcoe/news–events/umass-diabetes-news/2018/December/fda-insulin-2018/

  3. May the Lord bless Honorable Congresswoman and accomplished nurse Lauren Underwood. Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, 318 days, tic, tock, tic, tock, meeeeeeoooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww…

  4. Han Bell, please remember FDA Commissioner Gottlieb is gone, and the Senate recently confirmed his successor, a guy from Texas whose name I forgot.

    Gottlieb is now working for one of the pharmaceutical companies, I believe Novartis, but not 100% sure that was where he landed after leaving the FDA earlier this year.

    The Biologics law referred in your posts was first approved in 2009.

    Yes, it is a kind of legerdemain to reclassify insulin as a biologic drug, but the legislation Underwood and the other cosponsors implemented was legal, and Underwood and the others, including the 3 Republicans who cosponsored H.R. 5444 got a “quick win”.

    I think calling it a “hoax” is overstating, but one may need to research the original drafts of the appropriations bill for FDA, through HHS to determine if the language of H.R. 5444, which was introduced this past Tuesday, was already going to be part of the FY2020 funding bill, and determine if Underwood’s first legislative win, one of her sponsored bills becoming law, was going to happen whether H.R. 5444 was filed/published or not.

    There are other separate bills which were incorporated into the final spending/appropriations compromise, for example, H.R. 4863, Export-Import Bank renewal, which Jeanne Ives brought up in her press release from yesterday.

    It definitely is worth the research, and let’s see if Jim Oberweis, or the other six Republican challengers to Underwood, will do the research and call out Underwood should what you say be completely 100% accurate.

  5. I find it rather odd that the bill was just introduced on 12/17 and it already has endorsements from all the major diabetes groups.

    It is also strange that there is no text available for the bill.

    Has anyone seen a written summary?

    Does anyone know what it actually does?

    I think Dick Durbin has been passing stuff off to her to introduce, he has a repertoire of bills he keeps introducing year after year.

    This looks like a setup, the bill was introduced right before the budget was finalized.

    Underwood claims HR 1010 was her first bill.

    She wanted to eliminate short-term insurance.

    CBO said that 1.5 million would lose their Healthcare.

    And there would be an excessive unfunded mandate.

    That bill was also total garbage.

    Take a look at her HR 1868, Healthcare affordability.

    It illustrates our total misunderstanding of how Healthcare and ObamaCare funding works.

    She misunderstands that it is a refundable tax credit.

    The net result of which would be that most would ever pay any federal income taxes, because the credit would be greater than the federal income tax owed.

    Another piece of garbage and an illustration of her ignorance about how Healthcare actually works.

    Take a look for yourself and take a look at the underlying IRS code.

    And read her examples on Facebook and then her press releases. They’re out of touch with reality.

    So I don’t trust her on this.

    Especially since I haven’t even seen it yet nor has anyone else.

  6. She is consumed with HATE.

    Why does she hate white men so much?

    Why does she praise Antifa goons?

  7. Han Bell, as mentioned on Twitter I am now all over this, and your research has been very helpful.

    I have done additional research and my findings show there is credibility your theory of this being a “setup” is very possible.

    Have more research to do, & will be making calls tomorrow to confirm a couple of things.

    For example, even before reading your comments of yesterday I found the Dick Durbin connection.

  8. Jim Oberweis has been running some incredibly ignorant campaign ads on social media.

    I just saw one where he was asking you to vote for him because he’ll put an end to Pelosi’s impeachment witch hunt.

    Jim,the witch got caught.

    The hunt is over but burning the witch at the stake.

  9. But when’s she gonna lower the cost of chocolate suppositories for Angel?

  10. When will she lower the cost of the high blood pressure meds I have to take because of her and her political ilk?

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