$35 Emergency Insulin From MN Program
There's a Law That Gets You Insulin for $35. Almost Nobody Knows About It.
In 2017 a 26-year-old man named Alec Smith aged off his mother's health insurance. He had Type 1 diabetes. The insulin and supplies he needed ran about $1,300 a month, which he did not have, so he started stretching what he had left to get to payday.
He didn't make it. He was about $300 short.
His parents spent the next three years at the Capitol, and in 2020 the Legislature passed the law that carries his name. It passed the Senate 67 to 0. Whatever you think about most things that happen in St. Paul, that vote is worth sitting with for a second.
Here's what it does, and I'd guess most of the people it was written for have never heard of it.
Two programs, not one
The Minnesota Insulin Safety Net Program has two halves, and they solve two different problems. People mix them up constantly, so it's worth being clear.
The urgent need program is for right now. If you're nearly out, you can walk into your pharmacy with a form and a prescription and leave with a 30-day supply for a $35 copay. Not a mail-order wait. That day, at the counter. You can generally use it once in a twelve-month period.
The continuing need program is the longer-term one. It requires the manufacturers to supply your insulin for up to a year, at no more than $50 for each 90-day refill, and you can renew it annually. That's roughly $200 a year for insulin.
And here's a thing worth knowing about the first one: every outpatient and community pharmacy licensed in this state is required to participate. Not encouraged. Required. So the pharmacy counter in Chaska or Waconia or Victoria where you already pick up your prescriptions is a place this works.
Who qualifies
For the urgent need program, you need to live in Minnesota, have a current insulin prescription, have less than a seven-day supply on hand, and not be on Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare. You'll need a Minnesota ID, driver's license or permit, or tribal ID. If you don't have one of those, an ITIN works instead.
There's one requirement that trips people up, and weirdly it runs backward from what you'd expect: you have to be paying more than $75 a month for your insulin to qualify. The thinking is that if you're already paying less than that, the program isn't what you need. Fair enough. But it means people assume their insurance disqualifies them when the size of their copay is exactly the thing that qualifies them.
For the continuing need program, the bar is a household income at or below 400% of the federal poverty guidelines, plus the same residency and ID requirements, plus not being on Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare. Four hundred percent is a much higher ceiling than people assume. This is not a program only for people with nothing.
If you're on Medicare Part D, you're not automatically out. You can still qualify once you've spent $1,000 on prescription drugs in the current calendar year and meet the rest of the requirements.
How to actually do it
For urgent need, it's three steps. Download the application, fill it out, and bring it to your pharmacy with your ID and your prescription. If you can't print it, the state says to ask your pharmacist for the urgent need insulin application and they'll have it.
For continuing need, the application runs through the manufacturer, and the instructions live on the Board of Pharmacy's page. It's more paperwork. Which brings me to the part I'd most like you to remember.
You do not have to figure this out by yourself. There are MNsure-certified navigators specifically trained on this program, they work at community organizations around the state, they will sit down and do the application with you, and you can find one through the directory on the continuing need page. It costs you nothing. I've watched enough people give up on a form to know that the form is often the whole barrier.
Todo esto también está en español. El estado mantiene el programa completo en español aquí, y hay navegadores certificados que hablan español y pueden ayudarle con la solicitud.
Before you do any of that, check one thing
Look at what you're actually paying now.
Since January 2025, Minnesota Statute 62Q.481 has capped what state-regulated health plans can charge you. The Department of Health explains the details plainly: $25 a month per prescription for chronic-disease drugs including insulin, and no more than $50 a month total for the related supplies, meaning syringes, pens, pumps, test strips, and continuous glucose monitors. If you're paying more than that, something may be wrong, and you should call your insurer before you call anybody else.
I want to be fair about the limits of that, because this is where it gets complicated.
The cap covers plans people buy on their own through MNsure, and it covers employer plans that are fully insured, whether the employer is small or large. What it does not cover is self-insured employers, which pay claims out of their own money and are regulated under federal law instead of state law. A lot of people in this district work for companies that self-insure. So the honest answer is that it depends on your plan, and the fastest way to find out is one email to your HR office asking whether the plan is self-insured or fully insured. That's the whole question.
One more thing, and I mean this one
If you are currently stretching your insulin, taking less than you were prescribed, or skipping doses to make a vial last, call your prescriber today. Not next week. I'm a psychologist, not a physician, and I'm not going to pretend to give you medical advice. But I know what happened to Alec Smith, and I know that people who ration usually do it quietly, because they're embarrassed about money.
There is nothing embarrassing about this. The price is the problem. You are not the problem.
Why I'm telling you this
The manufacturers do run their own assistance programs, and some of them are genuinely useful. I'm not going to pretend they don't exist. What I have a problem with is that a person in a crisis is expected to know which door to knock on, in what order, with which form, while they're rationing a drug that keeps them alive.
So: it's not charity. It's not a favor. It's the law, and it's yours if you qualify.
I'd rather fix the price itself than build a better net underneath it. That's a longer argument and I'll make it another day. Today I just want the form to be something you've heard of.
If you're stuck partway through this and you want a hand, tell me where you got stuck. I'll help you find the navigator.