NPR · 13 hours ago

North Dakota Capped Insulin Prices for Diabetic Patients

When a 17-year-old girl has to mentally rehearse every piece of equipment keeping her alive before leaving the house, the cost of insulin is not an abstract policy debate - it is the texture of daily fear. In North Dakota, a deeply red state where skepticism of government regulation runs deep, families like the Kritzbergers drove hours across the prairie to testify at the Capitol, and something quietly shifted. Republican lawmakers who had long resisted intervention found themselves asking, "Why are folks paying hundreds of dollars a month for a drug that's been commercially available for decades?" - and discovering they had no satisfying answer. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, a reminder that shared vulnerability has a way of cutting through ideology. As Ang Kritzberger put it, reflecting on neighbors who showed up to harvest a sick farmer's fields, "It's all about being connected and finding that common ground" - which turns out to be less a political position than a very old human instinct.