Opinion | Insulin prices need to be reduced
Insulin is a life-saving drug, and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. charge too much
Having an auto-immune disorder is debilitating. It makes your life ten times harder and can cause severe mental health issues that only worsen the persisting physical problems brought on by the disorder. I have type-one diabetes, and if I am not careful and don’t correctly manage my blood sugar, I can ruin my health for weeks on end.
Caleb Otte, Sports Writer
These worries are more than enough for one person to handle, even with a strong support system. So why is the price of insulin so high, given those struggles?
Insulin allows me to enjoy food that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to eat. Insulin is the only thing between me and a diabetic coma. Insulin is what keeps me alive and well. I’m lucky enough that my parents are able to afford it with the help of their insurance. But why should I have to be “lucky” to survive?
I know that there are a plethora of people out there who are not as fortunate as me and sometimes have to forgo using insulin or use less than their doctor recommended dosage due to financial concerns.
This makes what should be a human right — the right to live — inaccessible for a large number of people, which is severely unethical. However, U.S. pharmaceutical companies profit off of the disabilities of others and continue to sell insulin at ridiculous prices.
The last time that I bought insulin, it cost me $50 for a month's supply. $50 seemed like a “fair deal” to me, but that is still a solid chunk of money, even with the help of health insurance. But what happens when you don’t have insurance to lower the cost?
Insulin could cost an individual upwards of $300 per month in the U.S. if they aren’t properly insured. In all likelihood, somebody without insurance is not working a job with steady pay, and therefore, this would take up most, if not all, of their paycheck.
People with type-one diabetes did not ask for this ailment. We have it because unfortunately, we did not win the genetic lottery. In what world should a person be punished for having a disease, let alone one that has no cure and that they couldn’t prevent themselves from getting?
I can imagine a world where, if I don’t find a job with a good enough salary — once I can no longer use my parent’s insurance — I may have to compromise on my basic needs just to afford a life-saving drug.
The inventors of insulin sold their patents on the medicine for $1 each. Charles Best, James Collip and Frederick Banting all performed tests with insulin to see if it was viable to keep people with diabetes healthy. Once they found success with the medicine, they didn’t look for profit but rather wanted insulin to be produced on a mass scale so those who needed it could have easy access.
”Insulin does not belong to me; it belongs to the world,” Banting once said.
The fact that the people responsible for the creation of medical insulin didn’t want to profit off of it should be enough to show the immorality of these large corporations.
Pharmaceutical companies see those with type 1 diabetes as captive consumers. They know that there will always be a large base of people who need the drug to survive. Therefore, they can hike up the prices to exorbitant amounts because ultimately, those with the disease will pay it. They have to if they want to survive. These companies do not care about the well-being of those with diabetes and just want to make as much money off of us as humanly possible.
I am not a consumer of insulin in the same way that I am a consumer of my favorite clothing brand or my favorite cereal. I buy those things because they bring enjoyment into my life, and I like to be able to use them in one way or another.
I am a consumer of insulin by need only. If my favorite clothing brand jacks up their prices, then I can simply stop buying clothes from them, because the amount of money it costs exceeds the amount of joy that I would get from those items. When it comes to insulin, I simply must continue to consume it no matter what the cost is because not buying it would cause me to die.
Pharmaceutical companies know that, and they exploit that fact. They have no intention of stopping.
In Canada, insulin costs about $12 per month on average. In Italy, it costs around $10. In Scandinavian countries, it costs around $8 dollars. In Hungary, it costs only $6. And in Turkey, it costs a whopping $3 per month.
It costs around $3 to produce one vial of insulin.
In the U.S., insulin costs $99 per month on average.
As a society, we must stop using capitalism as an excuse for pricing people out of the ability to survive. Insulin prices must be reduced.