Thanks to a decade-long fight to protest price gouging and raise awareness, insulin has become a centerpiece in the fight for universal health care. “The fact that all those people were in the room, that there’s a united bipartisan effort to question the big three insulin manufacturers — those things are really encouraging,” said Max Goldberg, a diabetic who traveled from New York City to attend the proceedings.

HELP chair Bernie Sanders announced the hearing on April 21, after a string of policy victories in the fight for affordable insulin. Over the past three years, twenty-two states as well as Washington, DC have passed laws capping the co-pays that insurers can charge patients for insulin prescriptions. California recently contracted with a biotech firm to produce generic insulins for the state to sell at cost. With the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act this year, seniors on Medicare have their insulin co-pays capped to $35 a month per prescription, drugmakers will be penalized for overcharging prescriptions filled through Medicaid, and diabetics on certain high-deductible plans now pay less for insulin before their deductibles are met. Most notably, the hearing took place a month after all three major insulin producers announced expansions to their coupon programs and price reductions on some of their insulins.