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Amid a scramble to assemble a health care policy package in the Senate, a pair of key senators have significantly changed a proposal to cap insulin costs. The new legislation by Senate Diabetes Caucus co-chairs Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) would cap insured patients’ insulin costs at $35 per month for at least one insulin of each type and dosage form, and require pharmacy benefit managers to pass through rebates they collect from insulin manufacturers to the insurance plans that employ them. (Cohrs, 4/21)

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which became law last year, capped the price of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare. But efforts to include people with private insurance died in Congress last year due to Republican opposition. (Kimball, 4/21)

The House Republican majority has released its demands for major government spending cuts in exchange for increasing the federal debt limit. And they include a familiar target for conservatives: Medicaid. It’s a gambit that may be more than a decade out of a date and could pose a political risk to the party. For years, Republicans have believed that Medicaid, which primarily serves low-income Americans, is less politically potent than Medicare or Social Security, two of the other core features of the US social safety net, and therefore a safer target for proposed cuts. There may be some truth to that notion — but Medicaid is plenty popular on its own terms. (Scott, 4/19)

Childless adults up to 56 who get health insurance through Medicaid, which covers low-income people, would have to work at least 80 hours a month or participate in job training or community service. Likewise, childless adults up to 56 years old who receive food assistance through the SNAP program would lose benefits after three months if they could not prove they were working at least 20 hours a week or participating in a job training program. Those work requirements currently apply to those up to 50 years old. (4/20)

A portion of the bill also outlines work requirements for Medicaid, though it does not include changes to Social Security and Medicare. The Medicaid changes include requiring recipients who do not have dependents and are not disabled to work, look for employment or be involved in so-called “community engagement” of some kind for at least 80 hours a month. (Folley, 4/20)