More people have been able to get diagnosed and begin treatment for diabetes as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Having health insurance allows people to see doctors and find out what they need to do to be healthy and stay healthy. Unfortunately, our unregulated pharmaceutical industry has a singular focus on generating profits, and does so without conscience. So drugs such as insulin, used to treat Type 1 diabetes, have become more and more expensive, with cheaper alternatives disappearing from the “free market,” due to their lack of profitability. In recent years, the cost of insulin has skyrocketed, leading to around 25% of people with diabetes playing a dangerous game of rationing their insulin.
A group of Minnesotans living with Type 1 diabetes have decided to cross the border to find cheaper drugs that can save their lives. Under the banners #Insulin4All and #CaravanToCanada, the group traveled for over five hours and over 600 miles from Minneapolis to Fort Frances, Ontario. And they got their medicine.
Our current healthcare and pharmaceutical systems make this journey worth it.
That’s less than 10 cents on the U.S. dollar. Lija Greenseid spoke with Newsweek about her participation in the Insulin4All action. Her 13-year-old daughter lives with Type 1 diabetes.
"This year it took me 15 phone calls to a variety of parts of the healthcare system over 11 days before I could get my daughter's insulin refilled. And this is exactly the same insulin we've been getting for many years," Greenseid said. "But, in Canada, you just walk in and you buy it … It's literally just as easy as you know, walking up to the pharmacy counter and asking for what you need."
You don’t get to call your health system the “best” anything if, just over your border, there are places doing it 11 times better. Quinn Nystrom spoke with Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE 11, explaining that the math makes the trip a no-brainer.
Nystrom says she also pays $380 a month for her health insurance premium, and doesn't begin to see her insulin costs reduced until she hits the $2,800 deductible. By the end of the year she says her insulin and diabetes-related medical costs cause her to easily hit her out-of-pocket maximum of $7,800.
There’s a reason that medical bills are responsible for well over half of the bankruptcies filed in the United States.
You can read more about the #Insulin4All movement here.