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There’s No Excuse for the Insulin Crisis
Approximately one in four people with diabetes are using less insulin than they need because of the cost
In the past 10 years, the price of insulin in the United States has tripled. For those people with diabetes who have to buy their insulin without insurance or with high-deductibles and coinsurance plans, the inflated price of this essential drug has forced impossible choices between buying insulin and paying for rent or buying food. (In some cases, biohackers with diabetes are even making their own insulin.)
In one 2019 study, one in four people with diabetes reported using less insulin than they needed because of the cost. This can impact blood sugar levels and lead to long-term consequences like blindness and amputations. For people with Type 1 diabetes like me, going without insulin ultimately leads to death.
As I write this, I’m reading about people resorting to shady deals on Craigslist to be able to afford their insulin. The other week the headlines were about a bus Bernie Sanders chartered to take people to buy their insulin in Canada. And tragic stories continue to surface of people with diabetes who have died rationing insulin because they were unable to afford it.
As I write this, I’m reading about people resorting to shady deals on Craigslist to be able to afford their insulin.
The great irony of all this is that the scientists who discovered insulin never intended to profit from it. After winning the 1923 Nobel Prize, they sold the patent for insulin to the University of Toronto for $3. One of the scientists, Frederick Banting, famously said, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” In that first year, so many patients wanted the new medicine that insulin had to be rationed until they could sort out the manufacturing process. A century later people are rationing insulin once again. What happened?
The reasons for the increasing cost of insulin in the U.S. are complex, but according to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, it comes down to two major factors: lack of pricing regulations and lack of competition.
