Gov. Andy Beshear signed a number of bills into law on Monday and said he was vetoing several others.
One of the bills garnering the most attention was House Bill 95, which caps a 30-day supply of insulin at $30.
Rep. Danny Bentley, R-Russell was the main sponsor of the bill while Rep. Patti Minter, D-Bowling Green, was one of the co-sponsors. Bentley is diabetic himself, while Minter has a son with Type I diabetes.
“This is a day of hope for so many families across Kentucky,” Minter said. “Signing this bill does more today than just lower the cost of a drug, it will make life better for thousands and thousands of people in this state, and it will save lives.”
Bentley, who was also on hand for the virtual bill signing event, added, “The diabetics of Kentucky, who number of 500,000, needed this bill. This is a better bill than we started out with, because it’s $30, not $100, so that helps a lot more people.”
He also pointed that this year is the 100th anniversary of the development of insulin.
Beshear, a Democrat, announced he had signed a dozen more health-related bills, and vetoed five passed by the Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate, which he said violated the Constitution.
“They were not about moving Kentucky forward or were not about what is best for the people of Kentucky,” he said. “Rather, these bills were more politically related, violate the state Constitution, chip away at our strong separation of powers, simply because of who is sitting in this chair.”
He described what he saw with these. “They attempted to take appointments, duties and other things away from this Governor’s office. The same powers and duties that virtually every governor before me had, simply because of the last set of elections. That is not good for our democracy.”