Kennedy: 32 Years to Count to a Billion, but Congress Can't Find $250 Million for Insulin (July 11, 2023)

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., turned a Senate hearing packed with children living with type 1 diabetes into a lesson on Washington’s spending, and he used a Pop-Tart to do it.

“The Federal budget is $6,000 billion, every year,” Kennedy said. “And we cannot find $250 million to cap the price of insulin?” The room broke into applause. The moment came at a July 11, 2023, Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the Special Diabetes Program, held with JDRF’s 2023 Children’s Congress. The video above shows the closing minute of Kennedy’s questioning. Quotes are from the official hearing transcript published by the Government Publishing Office [1].

A Hearing Full of Kids

More than 160 young delegates had traveled to Washington “from every State in the Union and five foreign countries,” Vice Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, told the committee [1].

The witnesses were Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; JDRF chief executive Dr. Aaron Kowalski; music producer Jimmy Jam Harris; and two Children’s Congress delegates, Maria Muayad of Yarmouth, Maine, and Elise Cataldo of Hooksett, New Hampshire [2]. Cataldo, 15, told senators she was diagnosed when she was 18 months old. “Life with diabetes is the only life I have ever known,” she said [1].

”Yada, Yada, Yada”

Kennedy opened with a question for Kowalski: “Have you ever heard the expression, ‘Yada, yada, yada’? What does that mean?”

“On and on and on,” Kowalski answered.

“We have had so much yada, yada, yada about affordable insulin. Not from people like you, but from us,” Kennedy said. “We have been nibbling around the edges for years” [1].

”Do You Have Health Insurance?”

He turned to Rodgers. “Fortunately, as a government employee, I do have health insurance,” the NIH official said.

“And it is pretty good, isn’t it?” Kennedy asked. Then he got to the point: Who needs a cap on insulin prices at about 30 bucks, Rodgers or an uninsured person?

“I think the person who is less available to afford it would probably benefit more,” Rodgers said [1].

“We have got 30 million people who are uninsured in this country, and some of them are diabetic too,” Kennedy said. He praised a bill from Collins and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and touted his own Affordable Insulin Now Act with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. “Our bill would cover everybody, everybody, whether you have health insurance or you are uninsured,” he said [1]. The Kennedy-Warnock bill, introduced in March 2023, would cap insulin at $35 for a 30-day supply for all patients, including the uninsured [3].

”You Could Hide a Dead Body in There”

Kennedy then took aim at the patient assistance programs drug companies point to. “Have you ever tried to apply for one of those programs; either of you; any of you?” he asked. “Oh, my, God. First, the application process: The fine print to apply is so much of it, you could hide a dead body in there. Nobody would ever find it” [1].

He complained that the programs send the medicine to the doctor instead of the patient. “I mean that is a special kind of stupid,” he said. The discounts run out after a month or a year, he said, “and then after a year, you go in one day and instead of 30 bucks, it is $567.23” [1].

“We need to stop nibbling around the edges,” Kennedy said. He put the cost of his fix at $250 million a year: “And I am not talking about taking out a reverse mortgage on Alaska and borrowing more money. I am talking about finding it in our budget” [1].

Counting to a Billion

Then came the moment in the video. “Elise, let me ask you a quick question. You probably do not know the answer; I had to look it up,” Kennedy said. “If I started counting to a billion right now, right this moment in 2023, and I counted … one number a second—one, two, three, four, five—and I counted all day and all night, and I counted in the shower, and I counted between bites of a Pop-Tart at breakfast. I keep counting and counting. How long do you think it would take me to count to a billion?”

“A very long time,” Cataldo said, to laughter.

“You are right. I told you, you were smart,” Kennedy said. “It would take me 32 years for 1 billion … it would be 2055. I would not make it. Now, do you know how big the Federal budget is? That is just 1 billion folks. The Federal budget is $6,000 billion, every year. And we cannot find $250 million to cap the price of insulin? Let us do it right. No more yada, yada, yada” [1].

Kennedy’s math holds up. A billion seconds is about 31.7 years, so counting nonstop from 2023 would end around 2055. He has made the same case on spending at other hearings, including in an exchange with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Murkowski: “I Am With Him”

Kennedy’s Alaska joke did not cost him Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. “Senator Kennedy articulated very well that the efforts that we are making to reduce the costs of insulin, make it affordable, well it may be, it may sound like a lot of money,” she said later in the hearing. “So I am with him on his, ‘Yada, yada, yada’ or as I said, ‘Blah, blah, blah.’ It is kind of the same thing. Let us do more than just talk about it” [1].

By the Numbers

160+: Children’s Congress delegates in Washington for the hearing [1].
$250 million: Kennedy’s estimate of the yearly cost of capping insulin prices for everyone [1].
$35: The monthly cap in the Kennedy-Warnock bill. A $35 cap for Medicare recipients became law in the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022 [4].
813: Counties Kennedy and Warnock later identified as “insulin deserts” [3].
$7.0 trillion: Federal spending in fiscal 2025, up from the “$6,000 billion” Kennedy cited in 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office [5].

What Happened Next

Kennedy kept pushing. In November 2023, he and Warnock released a bipartisan report, “Insulin Deserts: The Urgency of Lowering the Cost of Insulin for Everyone,” that found 813 counties where 16% or more of the population is uninsured and 10% or more has diabetes. “By capping prices at $35 for every patient, we can help lower future health care costs associated with complications that arise from untreated diabetes,” Kennedy said [3].

The research money the children came to defend kept flowing. In February 2026, Breakthrough T1D, as JDRF is now known, applauded Congress for extending the Special Diabetes Program through Dec. 31, 2026, and raising its funding from $160 million a year to $200 million [6].

The federal budget kept growing too. Washington spent $7.0 trillion in fiscal 2025, the Congressional Budget Office reported, with interest on the public debt topping $1 trillion for the first time [5].