Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Congressman Ritchie Torres is here. The Bronx Democrat, still a freshman, but widely seen as a rising star in his party, has been in the news for several reasons. One is-- Did you hear this? He says there is a compound housing Russian spies right here in the Bronx on 255th Street in Riverdale. If that sounds like an April Fool's joke, a Russian spy compound in the Bronx, it is not. Torres is on the Homeland Security Committee and has some thoughts about Russian cyber hacking here in New York as well. We'll talk to Ritchie Torres about those things.

We'll talk about some pretty big news out of the House of Representatives yesterday for the millions of Americans who use insulin to manage their diabetes. It's a cap on the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month, but so far only one Republican in the Senate has voiced support and they would need 10 to pass the bill there. The details of the objections are interesting. We'll take your calls if you're an insulin user. Also on healthcare costs in Congress, it looks like a bipartisan bill might be emerging to make sure all Americans who get COVID tests and vaccines and treatments as the Omicron BA.2 wave ramps up. The previous bill has expired.

I'll pick up on something Torres told The Washington Post in a recent interview. He said we're living in an FDR moment without an FDR majority. I assume he means that's why President Biden's Build Back Better Bill can't get past with its universal pre-K, and eldercare provisions, paid family leave, and other things that many Americans would probably like if Congress had an FDR era Democratic majority to pass it or if the Senate was actually representative of the American public. We bring this up a lot. Obviously, when New York with its 19 million people gets two senators and Wyoming with less than one million also gets two senators, let's just say that's a unique way to have a democracy. With that as prelude, Congressman Torres, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Always a pleasure to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with insulin. The House passed the $35 a month cap for out-of-pocket insulin costs. Why is that needed now, in your opinion, if we never had it before?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: We're living in a time where people are struggling with unprecedented inflation in every sector of the economy. We passed, in the House, the Affordable Insulin Now Act which caps the cost of insulin at $35. Back in 2017, the CDC reported that there are more than 100 million Americans who are either diabetic or pre-diabetic, Americans whom insulin is either a necessity in the present or could be a necessity in the future. The price of insulin in the United States can be as much as 10 times higher than the prices elsewhere in the industrialized world. From 2014 to 2019, the price of insulin rose by 54%.

Here's the most troubling fact. Insulin has become so dangerously unaffordable that 26% of diabetics have to ration their insulin, have to cut back or skip doses. Rationing insulin can be dangerous and deadly. I see capping the price of insulin as part of the President's broader strategy for combating inflation.

Brian Lehrer: That's shocking if Americans are having to ration their insulin of all things in this wealthy country. Is this a particular problem in your district? Many of our listeners know you represent the lowest income congressional district in the country, in the Bronx. We know diabetes hits lower-income people disproportionately. What's your local to the Bronx take on this?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Well, capping the price of insulin is a game-changer in the South Bronx because not only are we the poorest in the country, but we have among the highest rates of diabetes, of chronic illness. That's why the Bronx was disproportionately affected by COVID-19. One of the most common COVID comorbidities was diabetes.

Brian Lehrer: We just talked on the show the other day about how it turns out that a risk factor for people, especially unvaccinated people, according to our virologist guest, Dr. Daniel Griffin, but people who get COVID, they have a 40% higher chance than other people of developing diabetes by a year after their COVID case. Again, that's particularly in unvaccinated people who tend to get it more seriously. There's more diabetes around right now, secondary to COVID. I see you did get 10 Republicans voting for this bill in the House, though that still means around 200 voted against it. You have Susan Collins so far in the Senate as one Republican backer there, but you'll need 10 to avoid a filibuster. How hopeful are you?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Washington DC rarely inspires hope. I would never underestimate the obstructionism of the Republican Party, but we're exposing the hypocrisy of Republicans. How can you complain about inflation and then oppose staffing the Federal Reserve and oppose empowering Medicare to negotiate more affordable drug prices and oppose capping the price of insulin at $35 a month? Republicans are going to have to answer for these positions in the midterm elections.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Politico describes Republican objections this way. It says, "Some GOP members compared the price cap to President Jimmy Carter's cap on the price of gasoline and claimed it would trigger similar shortages and long lines for the drug. Other Republicans said the policy would encourage US pharmaceutical companies to relocate to China." Are you not concerned about shortages or loss of major US companies?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: The pharmaceutical companies are heavily subsidized by the public. We invest billions of dollars in research and development. The public has a right to expect affordable prescription prices, at least for something like insulin which is widespread. There are 37 million Americans who have diabetes at the moment. Many of them rely on insulin and should have the ability to afford it.

Brian Lehrer: I also see that the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry are at odds on this. This is about how you regulate the price of insulin or the cost out-of-pocket of insulin. This part I think is pretty interesting, and maybe there's a debate to be had here. The insurance industry calls it a giveaway to Big Pharma and says this will push up the price of health insurance premiums for everybody because your bill does not cap what the drug companies can charge for insulin. It caps what patients have to pay. The extra cost falls on the insurance companies. Did you consider capping what Big Pharma can charge as an alternative way to control this cost?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Look, we did what we could do to cap the cost of insulin in the short term to combat inflation, but the question you raise I think speaks to the broader dysfunction of our healthcare system. We have a fundamentally broken healthcare system and we need to fundamentally reform it, but that's not going to be accomplished within the constraints of the political reality that we're facing at the moment. The best we could do at the moment is cap insulin and bring some relief to families who are struggling with inflation.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to go on to some other things now with Congressman Ritchie Torres, but listeners, help us report this story. If you use insulin to manage diabetes, has the price been spiking lately? Do you support this bill or have questions about it? You can call about other things for Congressman Ritchie Torres, the alleged Russian spike compound in Riverdale that we're going to talk about next, or anything else. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. All right, Congressman, new topic. A Russian spy compound in the Bronx, you say, on 255th Street in Riverdale, not far from the Hudson River. What is it officially and what makes you think it contains spies?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: I came to discover that Riverdale is home to the Russian diplomatic compound, which dates back to the 1970s during the Cold War. It is the tallest building at the tallest point in the Bronx. It's a white building that towers above everything else. When there was a fire in the building back in 2011, the FDNY had trouble gaining access. It's one of the most inaccessible buildings in the area. There was a man by the name of Robin Dreeke who was a member of the FBI's Russian military intelligence squad. He said publicly that it's an open secret that there are elements of the Russian Foreign and Military Intelligence Services who live in or near the compound.

Back in 2015, the Southern District for New York indicted a man by the name of Evgeny Bakurov for operating on US soil as an agent of the Russian Federation. Mr. Bakurov lived near the Russian diplomatic compound in Riverdale. Back in 2018, the federal government [inaudible 00:10:16] more than 100 Russian diplomats disguised as spies on US soil, which raises the question, how many of those diplomats live near or at the diplomatic compound in Riverdale? I'm simply calling on the FBI to investigate these reports of espionage, because if you do have espionage operations being conducted in violation of federal law, then those spies should be expelled as the law requires.

Brian Lehrer: Is that different than any other diplomatic compound of any country, at any city, maybe even ours, and other countries that may have spies among the diplomats?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Espionage is illegal, but the difference here is that Russia has invaded a sovereign nation-state and is actively committing war crimes against Ukrainian people, and is threatening both cyberwar and nuclear war against the West and against Ukraine. As far as I'm concerned, Russia has become the single greatest challenge to the national security of the United States.

Brian Lehrer: I see you're also, along those lines, raising an alarm about the potential for Russian cyber hacking here in New York. I'm seeing this on Politico New York. It says, "Torres wrote to Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams urging them to guard against Russian cyberattacks by mandating the use of multi-factor authentication across all public agencies," from Politico. I think this is good advice for everyone, Congressman, with our own personal accounts of various kinds too, but for people who don't know, what is multi-factor authentication?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Under multi-factor authentication, it's no longer sufficient to have a simple login, to have a simple username and password. You have to go through multiple layers of security, multiple layers of verification in order to gain access to a computer system. The added layer of verification could be typing in a numeric code that has been sent to your smartphone, it could mean verifying your identity through fingerprinting. Something as simple as multi-factor authentication could radically reduce the likelihood of cyber breaches. When it comes to cybersecurity, the scandal is not that we are failing. The scandal is that we're not even trying. Not every owner and operator of critical infrastructure has multi-factor authentication.

In fact, the New York City Law Department, which fell victim to a massive cyber breach last year, did not have at the time multi-factor authentication. The United States and Europe have imposed on Russia the harshest economic sanctions in American history. There's every reason to think that Russia will engage in cyber retaliation. Make no mistake, Russia is a superpower in cyberspace. Almost all of America's critical infrastructure, almost all of our energy systems and our water systems are dependent on computer systems, are dependent on what are known as industrial control systems that are highly vulnerable to cyberattacks from a cyber superpower like Russia. Russia has a demonstrated ability to compromise the critical infrastructure of the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Remember when Trump said, "Russia, if you're listening, find Hillary Clinton's emails"? That was an invitation to Russian cyber hacking, but in the context of power politics, it sounds like you're concerned about potential Russian cyber hacking in this country that could affect more ordinary Americans.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: I'll give you a few examples. Most of the ransomware attacks that have stolen billions of dollars from American households, businesses, and governments, most of those attacks have come from Russia. Remember SolarWinds, the largest breach of the federal government in US history? Russia was the mastermind behind SolarWinds. Or Colonial Pipeline the largest breach of energy infrastructure in US history?

Russia was the mastermind behind Colonial Pipeline. Or JBS which was the largest breach of food infrastructure in US history. Russia was the mastermind behind JBS. I have real concern that there are two areas of critical infrastructure that concerned me the most. The first is pipelines. 40% of the country's electricity comes from natural gas, which is delivered by pipelines.

The pipeline sector is known to lack rigorous standards of cybersecurity, and even more troubling is water. There are 52,000 water systems in the United States, and most of them are operated by local governments that lack the resources to invest in cybersecurity. The situation is far more precarious than people realize. We, as a country, have to start investing in the cyber defenses of all of our critical infrastructure.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take some phone calls. My guest, if you're just joining us, is Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. If you're just joining us, the first thing we talked about was the bill that the House passed yesterday. We'll see if it can get through the Senate to cap the cost of insulin at $35 out of pocket for individuals who are dependent on it for their diabetes. Robert in Brooklyn is calling about that. Robert, you're on WNYC with Congressman Torres. Hi, there.

Robert: Hi, Brian. how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you?

Robert: I'm fine, thanks. I've been an insulin-dependent diabetic since I was nine. I appreciate certainly all the efforts now being made to bring down the cost of insulin, but this has been going on for upwards of 20 years. If you look at Novo Nordisk who makes Novolin or Eli Lilly who makes Humulin insulin, you can see that starting around 2000, their share prices have really skyrocketed in comparison to their historical performance.

That's basically the same time that insulin started increasing from around $20 of [unintelligible 00:16:44] out of pocket to where it is now, which can be upwards of $100 depending on what you're looking at. This is like just the most basic profiteering off of a medical necessity. I literally can't live without insulin, and there's no other treatment for me. They haven't made a new insulin in probably about 30 years once Humalog was developed. This is not going to R&D. There aren't a higher percentage of diabetics, so they're not having to manufacture that much more insulin. I can't think of any excuse for it other than just naked profiteering off of human bodies.

Brian Lehrer: Off of people like you. Robert, you make the case. Do you like this solution as opposed to other ways if you've given that any thought?

Robert: Frankly, whatever it takes. Novo Nordisk is a Danish company. I don't think that we can just say that they can't charge what they charge for these things. A lot of this has to do with consolidation. I looked into this, I don't know 5 or 10 years ago, and I was asking my pharmacy about it. They said it's because of the wholesalers that they have to buy from. You call the wholesaler, and they say that's the cost that the manufacturer imposes, and it just goes up the pike. Frankly, I think whatever it takes is the answer. If this is the solution that the Congressman thinks can actually get past, then I am 100% for it.

Brian Lehrer: Robert, thank you very much.

Robert: There's no good actors, no sympathetic people in this mess. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you and be well. Thank you very much. Another one on this, Aaron in Brooklyn you're on WNYC. Hi, Aaron. Thanks for calling in.

Aaron: Hi, Brian. I'm a longtime listener, first time calling. Love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Aaron: I was traveling in North Carolina to visit family and I ran out of insulin while I was on vacation with them. I went to the Walgreens to try to fill the prescription and they told me it was too soon. I contacted the insurance company and they said that my plan wouldn't allow me to get a bottle covered. They said the price at Walgreens was $225 for a bottle of insulin. I'm on vacation, and out of pocket, it would've been $225.

Fortunately, the staff at Walgreens told me to go to Walmart where they had regular insulin, which is not very good insulin. It's a decent insulin, but it's not as good as the one that I prescribed, which is Humalog, and I was able to get it for $25 from Walmart, but it made it harder for me to control my blood sugar while I was on vacation with my family.

Brian Lehrer: Aaron, thank you for telling us that story. I hope you're okay. Here's some pushback on the cap on the monthly out-of-pocket cost of insulin bill, I think, from Ally in Salem, in Jersey. Ally, you're on WNYC with Congressman Ritchie Torres. Hi, there.

Ally: Hey, Congressman Torres. Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Okay, thank you.

Ally: I want to hear from Congressman Torres about health insurance plans, because like the caller just stated, and I'm going to tell you, it doesn't matter if you lower the cost of my insulin. The bottom line is, Caremark, which is my insurance company, has over a $1,500 deductible. I go to the pharmacy, and when I go to get my insulin, guess what? They're going to take that deductible no matter what. Great that you're reducing the cost. Fine. I get it, but bottom line is, if you look at who gets more money when you compare it to drug companies versus the actual insurance companies, it's the insurance companies that are making a lot more money every year.

There's a reason why all those CEOs of Caremark, Humana, all those guys are making a lot more money than anyone else. No one's addressing that. I want to understand what you are going to do to bring down deductibles and all of these other out-of-pocket costs that aren't going to change even if you bring down the cost of the insulin.

Brian Lehrer: Ally, thank you. Congressman.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Well, first, I want to just thank all the callers for sharing their stories. I want to pick up on something that was said about market concentration. Market concentration has been one of the causes of inflation, including in the pharmaceutical sector. As far as I'm concerned, the cost of pharmaceuticals is predatory, not by accident, but by design. There is a law that prohibits the federal government from negotiating the prices of prescription drugs which has led to the kind of profiteering that was described earlier by one of your callers. We have to empower of the federal government to negotiate more affordable prescription drugs, not only as it pertains to insulin, but to a wider range of pharmaceuticals that are a matter of life and death.

I want to be clear, no one is claiming that capping insulin is a systemic solution. No one's claiming that it's a substitute for broader healthcare reform, but it will bring urgently needed short-term relief to families, but ultimately a systemic reform of healthcare would require us to move from fee for service to value-based care. We should be paying for the value of healthcare rather than the volume of health services. That's the systemic solution that will require more Democrats in power in Washington, DC.

Brian Lehrer: Ally, thank you for your call. Be well. One other healthcare funding question. I see that Congress is trying to get a $10 billion deal for more COVID-related funding. Is that to continue to ensure that tests, vaccines, and treatments are available with no out-of-pocket costs for equity and to contain the spread of new variants?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Precisely. Even though we are increasingly returning to normal, when it comes to COVID, the mission is far from accomplished. There's a need to distribute new boosters to the elderly and the immunocompromised, in particular. As you referenced, there's a new sub-variant of Omicron known as BA.2 that has been driving a surge in coronavirus cases in Europe and will likely do the same here in the United States. There's a real need to replenish funding for the public health response to COVID for testing, therapeutics, and vaccines.

Brian Lehrer: Republicans say all the previous allocations for that haven't been accounted for and that new spending for that should be offset by $10 billion cut from something else to just not get us into more debt. Fair points?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: I mean, I disagree. COVID-19 is an emergency, and when there's an emergency, we should be acting decisively. Republicans are more than happy to expand the defense budget by tens of billions of dollars every year without fully paying for it. Republicans have been insistent on repurposing existing funds rather than allocating new funds to the COVID response. The COVID funding was originally supposed to be part of the appropriations bill that we passed a few weeks ago, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, and at the insistence of Republicans, it was supposed to be financed by a callback in state aid.

The COVID component was removed from the omnibus bill after an intense backlash from several House Democrats who states would've lost heavily from the lost of state aid. Ever since then, Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating a separate COVID funding bill, which as you said, will likely have a price tag of about $10 billion.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of tweets coming in. There are a lot of tweets coming in. I'll read these two. It's question for you. It says, "Wouldn't the insulin cap at $35 a month only apply to insured people?"

Congressman Ritchie Torres: It applies to everyone as I understand it.

Brian Lehrer: If you're uninsured and you go into a local pharmacy and buy a supply of insulin, they can only charge you $35 out of pocket for a month's supply?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: That's my understanding of the bill.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Another one says-- Let's see. This flipped off my screen already because there were so many other tweets coming in. Oh, I'm curious what you think about this. This was really aimed at me because talking about your insulin bill, I said it's crazy that in a wealthy country, like the United States, that people would be rationing insulin who need it because they can't afford it. Listener writes, "I wish you and others would stop calling the US a wealthy country. Just because there are few inordinately rich folks here, that doesn't override the droves of dreadfully poor people who vastly outnumber the plutes, the plutocrats." I think my response to you, listener, Stephan, is my understanding is we have about 5% of the world's population and about 25% of the world's wealth.

That would make us a wealthy country by that measure. Obviously, the distribution is crazy concentrated, but we're still a wealthy country. I think that policy can be based on that starting point. Congressman, I wonder if you ever thought about that for that listener.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: I mean the United States has the largest economy in the world, more than $20 trillion. Apart from the size of our economy, our currency, the US dollar, is the world's reserve currency. Among all the world's countries, we have the luxury of effectively printing money. We have the wealth to address these longstanding challenges facing our country. What is often lacking in Washington, DC is the political will.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that brings me to the last thing that I want to ask you about. I mentioned in the intro your quote in a recent Washington Post article. You said, "We're living in an FDR moment without an FDR majority." What do you mean by an FDR moment?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: When I entered Congress back in January of 2021, I was hopeful that we were living through the makings of an FDR moment. For the first time in a long time, we have a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House, and a boldly progressive vision for creating a fairer tax code and laying the foundation for a care economy which addresses the need for childcare and home care, and laying the foundation for a transition to clean energy and investing in affordable housing. We put forward the Build Back Better Act, which would've represented a once-in-a-generation investment, not only in physical, but also human and social infrastructure.

My view is if we can squander billions of dollars on failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, why can't we invest trillions of dollars in our own people, in our own future? That was the idealism that I had early on. I have since been brought down to earth because I think we have run into a buzzsaw of obstructionism from Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. I think we underestimated the extent to which those two senators would sabotage their own political party. That's not something most of us anticipated.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, do you see any chance for a Build Back Better Bill of any kind before the midterms, the childcare, and eldercare, and paid family leave, and climate provisions bill that Manchin and Sinema have been blocking? There always is talk about compromising that one more step that's going to get them to yes. Do you see it?

Congressman Ritchie Torres: I remain optimistic that we will negotiate a version of Build Back Better Act, but it's going to be a shadow [unintelligible 00:29:37]. We are at the mercy of Joe Manchin. He has all the leverage. The challenge is Manchin and Sinema have mutually exclusive demands. Sinema is fine with the spending, but she opposes the tax increases and Manchin is fine with the tax increases but opposes the spending. It's almost impossible to meet these contradictory demands from these two obstructionist senators.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it for today with freshman congressman from the Bronx, Democrat Ritchie Torres. We always appreciate when you come on. Thanks for today.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: Take care.

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