Diabetes used to be a death sentence. Without medical intervention, a diabetic’s blood sugar gets so high that the blood can become dangerously acidic, cells shrivel from dehydration, and the human body can no longer function.

That is why manufactured insulin, a drug that was invented over a century ago, is so important. It keeps type 1 diabetics alive. Now, because of insulin, parents and families are raising children with diabetes and preparing them for long, healthy lives — if they can afford it.

But right now in America, there are far too many who can’t. That is why we hear stories of parents who have to wonder which cost they will be able to afford next month: the mortgage payment or insulin for their kindergartener. That is why we hear stories of college students, away from home for the first time, skipping meals and struggling to make a 30-day insulin supply last for six months, putting their lives at risk every day because the price has doubled in just a few years. And that is why we hear stories of young adults who die before their 25th birthday, because they were forced to switch to less effective over-the-counter insulin, leaving mothers and fathers with the pain of knowing their children died alone in their rooms after rationing medicine they needed to survive, insulin pens empty on the floor.

But it does not have to be this way. For over 100 years, we have been able to save lives with insulin. For over 100 years, insulin has remained the only effective treatment for type 1 diabetes. But 100 years later, the drug costs more than ever.

Nearly 40 million Americans live with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and over a million of them live in my home state of Georgia. The American Diabetes Association asserts that diabetic patients account for $1 out of every $4 spent on health care in the United States. From 2012 to 2016, the price of insulin doubled; some estimates say that type 1 diabetics spend nearly $6,000 a year on insulin alone. A 2018 study published by the American Medical Association found that one out of four diabetic patients are forced to ration or skip doses due to exorbitant costs. And, in the last year, 100,000 Americans have died from this disease and its complications.

How have we let this happen? How, in the richest nation in the history of the world, are patients dying because they can’t afford a drug — a drug that has been widely available for over 100 years? We have a chance, right now, to change that.

The health of our loved ones is never far from our minds. As parents, it is amazing how quickly the world seems to stop when our children get sick. As a two-time breast cancer survivor, I know how difficult it can be to receive harrowing news. As a mother who lost her son to hatred and senseless gun violence, I know that the pain of losing a child never goes away, and that no parent should ever have to feel that same pain.

It is why I have taken a mother's love, that sense of protection a mother has for her child, and used it for my community, and for every parent out there who is terrified by the prospect of having to bury their own child.

At the end of March, a bipartisan majority of my colleagues in the House came together to pass my bill to lower costs for American families. It’s very simple: My bill would set a cap on the out-of-pocket costs of insulin products at $35 per month. Now, I am working with my colleague Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, also from Georgia, to help get it passed in the Senate.

The time is now to lower prescription drug costs in America, and we can’t stop here. In 2019, we passed H.R.3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, a bill that would lower all drug costs for Americans, even those without health insurance. Republicans blocked it, and we need the work of advocates, activists, and young people across the country to stand up and demand more from their representatives.

The time is now. Because we can and we must make a medication that has been saving lives for over 100 years more affordable for the Americans who need it to live. We can and we must do more to save the lives of our friends and neighbors with diabetes, to stop funerals, and to keep parents and families across the country from feeling the pain and heartache that comes from losing a loved one.