Insulin is becoming Democrats’ signature drug pricing issue 

JANELLE LUTGEN OUTSIDE OF SEN. BERNIE SANDERS’ CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS IN CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA. (REBECCA F. MILLER FOR STAT)

As my colleague Lev Facher puts it in a new story out today for STAT: “Presidential candidates can’t stop talking about insulin.” Lev explains that unlike most health care issues, insulin pricing is easy to bring up in a stump speech: It’s the story of repeated price hikes for a nearly 100-year-old drug that has had life-and-death consequences for people around the country.

Lev spent the weekend traversing Iowa with Janelle Lutgen, a mother who turned into an activist after her son Jesse died from insulin rationing. For the past few months, she has been leaving presidential candidates with this message: To people with diabetes, insulin is worth its weight in gold — but that’s not what it should cost. She leaves them with little gold insulin vials to drive the point home.

Read Lev’s story here.