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Insulin Affordability: A Matter of Life Or Death
My family and I were in the airport on the way home from a ski trip when my brother became lethargic. He could barely move or breathe, and his face looked like a skeleton’s. He collapsed as soon as we arrived at our home airport. Soon after being admitted to the hospital, his blood sugar was measured at 600—six times the average—and he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
All over the country, 1.45 million people (about Hawaii's population) live with type 1 diabetes. The pancreas of a person with type 1 diabetes pancreas is unable to regulate blood sugar. Insulin lowers blood sugar, and without it, people can experience diabetic ketoacidosis. This, if untreated, leads to loss of consciousness and eventually death. Though my family is fortunate enough to manage my brother’s diabetes, 69% of diabetics cannot afford the proper dosage of insulin and must ration it to survive. On average, people spend $6000 a year on insulin alone.
The recent Insulin Affordability Act which, for people with Medicare, caps the price of out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 per dose, is not an adequate solution because it does not account for uninsured people or people with other private insurance plans. It also only applies to seniors with Medicare Part D. What’s worse, it costs $2-4 to produce a vial of insulin while its price continues to increase. According to The Washington Post, “Between 2002 and 2013, insulin prices jumped, with the typical cost for patients increasing from about $40 a vial to $130.”
Insulin is not the only necessity for the survival of diabetics: they also need a way to monitor their blood sugar throughout the day to regulate their insulin. Over time, high glucose levels can damage the body's vital organs, cause permanent blindness, and damage blood vessels leading to heart attack, stroke, and other problems with kidneys, gums, eyes, feet, and nerves. Low blood sugar left untreated can lead to seizure, loss of consciousness, and death.
Blood sugar monitors are also prohibitively expensive: they have multiple parts— a receiver ($450), transmitter ($300), and 3 sensors ($440) which are replaced every 10 days. Only about 38% of type 1 diabetics can afford a monitor. According to Human Rights Watch, “The burdens from high drug costs are inherently regressive” and disproportionately impact historically marginalized populations in the US. In 2016 alone, “black adults were more than twice as likely to experience diabetes-related amputations as white adults.”
There is no easy solution, but overall, insulin prices need to be dropped for everyone, not just people with Medicare or certain insurances. To stop drug companies from exploiting life-threatening health conditions, the government must intervene.
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It was written because of my connection to this issue and how it affects my family and millions of people around the world.