I’ve had Type 2 diabetes for over 15 years. After I retired five years ago, from a high stress job in Chicago and relocated to my boyhood home of St. Louis, my control of the disease improved quite a bit as my A1C, with only moderately burdensome management, remained in the lower ranges celebrated by the happiest patients in Big Pharma’s TV commercials for diabetes medicines. But my ability to control my blood sugar took a bad turn about a year ago as successive tests have seen my test results rise into more dangerous territory.
When I saw my doctor on Monday, he recommended we declare total war on the problem, with more frequent glucose tests, full bore carbohydrate counting and mealtime, fast acting insulin to supplement once a day long lasting insulin. A complete record is kept of all of it. It’s a significant modification of lifestyle, but then so are strokes, amputation and death.
I knew, of course, that going to war is always a gut punch to the budget, but I hadn’t really anticipated quadrupling pharmacy copays above everything I’ve been paying to treat hypertension, diabetes and arthritis. Though I have a sufficiently comfortable retirement that I can afford it, without cutting things out of my life elsewhere, I can easily understand that many retirees my age, as well as many others, definitely could not.
This realization about the exploding cost of my treatment impelled me to tickle the Google for some enlightenment and I got an eye full —
Here —
In the past five years, the price of insulin in the US has nearly doubled. Diabetics who do not have medical coverage or insurance have to pay around $1000 every month for the life-saving drug. Many resort to rationing their insulin intake, sometimes with tragic consequences…
And here —
One insulin user from Minnesota, Quinn Nystrom, documented her five-hour trek for insulin on Twitter.
Nystrom said that she bought a nearly identical product — one vial of insulin from Novo Nordisk — that cost US$320 in the U.S. and $30 in Canada.
“Where have we gone wrong America?!?” she tweeted.
Note that these prices are for a product costing less than $10 to produce and market.
And here —
The cost of the four most popular types of insulin has tripled over the past decade, and the out-of-pocket prescription costs patients now face have doubled. By 2016, the average price per month rose to $450 — and costs continue to rise, so much so that as many as one in four people with diabetes are now skimping on or skipping lifesaving doses.
The perpetration of this predation on the sick and infirm has been carried out by the usual suspects, Big Pharma, aided and abetted by the indifference, at best, and corruption at worst, of disreputable politicians.
[T]here are two main reasons why insulin is so expensive now. One is that U.S. laws let pharmaceutical manufacturers set their own prices and raise them without limit.
The second reason, the authors noted, is that there isn't significant competition in the U.S. insulin market. Price competition typically comes from the introduction of a generic drug that directly competes with a branded product.
But the authors said that current insulin makers have blocked the entry to such products by getting new patents based on things such as a new delivery device.
* * * * *
Quinn Nystrom, 33, from Baxter, Minn., has type 1 diabetes. She's been working with local and federal elected officials to improve insulin access and affordability.
She's helped lead three bus trips to Canada so people could buy more affordable insulin. The same vial of insulin that she pays $340 for in the United States costs $30 in Canada, she said.
"A single vial of current analog insulin costs around $3 to $6 to make. There is no reason for that price difference between the U.S. and Canada, other than that Canada holds down their drug prices with legislation," Nystrom said.
My story, and the stories of millions of others who suffer worse than I ever will from this and myriad other defects in America’s healthcare system, shows why that system must be radically reformed, cutting out the corporate corruption and greed and delivering care as a right, not a costly if not unavailable privilege.
Go Bernie!
Go Liz!
Medicare for All!
Never give up! Never surrender!