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Qasim Rashid, Esq.

It costs ~$70 to produce a year’s supply of insulin. Yet, the average annual cost of insulin went from $2,864 in 2012 to $5,705 in 2016 to $18,000 in 2024. That’s a 25,714% markup.😳

That isn’t inflation. It isn’t supply chain issues. It is 100% corporate greed.

@QasimRashid There's nothing better for business than when customers literally have to buy your product no matter the price in order to not die!

@QasimRashid there should be a government-chartered corporation that makes off-patent drugs and sells them at cost.

@cswalker21 @QasimRashid Government-owned, Contractor-operated. The US already uses this approach to buy nukes, tanks, jets, bombs, missiles, etc.

For the few billion it would cost to build a pharma plant, the US would get local jobs, more supply of off-patent drugs (lowering the cost), domestic supply and supply-chain diversity for the next pandemic, and low-cost drugs for Medicare.

@QasimRashid Also uniquely a US problem. Check out visualcapitalist.com/cost-of-i to see prices in other places around the world. The second most expensive on the list there is less than a quarter of the US price.

And insulin is just one example of how the US medical system (it isn't really "care" at this point) rips us all off in the interest of corporate profits. ACA went nowhere near far enough.

Visual Capitalist · Charted: The Average Cost of Insulin By CountryThis visual highlights the cost of insulin by country, showing how much more expensive diabetes medicine is in the U.S.

@QasimRashid And for those who would jump up and down and say that national healthcare systems don't work: I lived for almost 30 years in a country with one, and I can tell you it works. Nobody is afraid they will become sick, or get hurt, lose their job and then be bankrupted by medical bills. Nobody has to tell the ambulance which hospital to take them to for their insurance to cover it. It works much, much better than the US scheme. Unless the goal is corporate profits, of course.

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid National health care only works if there is a national consensus that health care is a right. What's to stop a conservative government from squeezing the national health care down to nothing.

@timo21 @QasimRashid What stops insurance companies doing that now? Oh, right…

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid despite the snark, it's a serious issue. Look at the Tories in the UK for instance.

@timo21 @QasimRashid They can try, and they have no doubt chipped away at the edges of the system and starved it of money, but even the staunchest of conservatives I know would never support getting rid of the NHS.

It is a point of pride for the country. Yes, I know they complain about it, but they will also defend its existence,

Remember Boris was very proud to say he was cared for by the NHS during COVID. Even the Tories know taking it away would be political suicide.

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid That's great to hear. Conservatives are ruining so much around the world lately.

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid

I was hanging out with a couple visiting from Canada. We were drunk and goofing off, one tripped and fell down and the other said, "Careful! You'll end up in an AMERICAN hospital!"

@Bluedonkey

Also uniquely a US problem

Why does that (again) make me think it could be related to food habits in the US/North America. Can't think of any (popular) food from America that's not laced with sugar other than the usual steaks/fries.

@Deus @Bluedonkey as someone assigned american at birth and also #T1D

many insulin users are diagnosed as children. i was 3. an immunodeficiency caused my pancreas to fail when i contracted chickenpox. it's true that american foodstuffs have waaay too much sugar, often in unexpected products. but type-1 is always insulin dependent, and not caused by sugar in the diet.

but all the more reason insulin should be free. but you know we only love fetuses here, not actual living children. 😮‍💨

@Deus It is not the need for insulin that is uniquely a US problem - it is the need to support and defend against all evidence a health system that prioritizes corporate profits over caring.

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid and thanks to pre-payment certificates, for those on a lot of medication, the amount you will need to pay in the UK for NHS prescriptions in a 12 month period is effectively capped at £111.60 (payable in installments)

@Bluedonkey
I was about to say! American insulin is so expensive because corporations *can pull that shit*. They can't do this pretty much anywhere else. Te US healthcare system is a giant warning for the rest of us.
@QasimRashid

@Bluedonkey @QasimRashid
“Didn’t go far enough” thanks to Sen. Lieberman holding out to tank the public option.

@janisf@mstdn.social @QasimRashid Making people pay > $400 out-of-pocket for a drug that only costs $70 is still not good enough.

Much of Canada does better than that right now. Which is why every so often I hear about people making runs to Thunder Bay or Fort Francis (the Canadian government being pleased to not object too much so long as not too many Americans are doing that).

@michael_w_busch @QasimRashid Agreed. And Sen. Klobuchar echoes you. The system we're working with atm is a barely-regulated corporation-support. With way, way too many voters convinced that more deregulation is the way to go....

Get out there and door-knock. it works. Yes, we absolutely can do better.

@janisf Senator Klobuchar's current statement is "nobody should pay more than $35 per month for insulin", though?

She has not so far endorsed making out-of-pocket costs lower than that or setting them to zero.

@michael_w_busch $35/mo is what she could, and did, pass. It *is* entirely covered by Medicare part D and by some private plans available to low-income buyers on the health coverage exchange, for which she and Sen. Tina Smith have been pressuring rather tirelessly. So, generally speaking, if you can afford $35/mo, you pay $35/mo. And the people who can't, don't.

But if I'm reading you right, nothing is ever good enough. Please, go forth and outrage.

@michael_w_busch And don't forget to sit out on voting to protest. That way Republicans can full-out support what they call Free Market Capitalism, and we'll go back to entirely unregulated prices on everything, including $1400 insulin.

@QasimRashid I'm confused. Is this some American thing? This isn't true in free countries. I paid $0 for my insulin the last 20 years and if I were to pay cash it would be ~$50 CAD/month over the counter.

@QasimRashid as time goes on the more I wish there were more open source pharmaceutical efforts, and I don't mean that as a euphemism for meth labs Breaking Bad style -- I mean truly in the sense of empowering smaller or impoverished communities to produce medications that are lifesaving.

It would have a nice side effect of forcing these drugs to be cheaper everywhere.

@QasimRashid In Canada (where insulin was first developed), insulin is many times cheaper than the US., and under a new program, will become completely free in the coming year.

@QasimRashid In 2021, 38.4 million Americans, or 11.6% of the population, had diabetes-it's hard to believe they don't have enough clout to get this fixed.

@QasimRashid Only now is Biden slowly removing this obscene burden.

@QasimRashid you forgot the "only in the United States" part. Other countries have corporations.

@QasimRashid In the U.K., diabetics do not pay for insulin. It is provided free of charge by our beloved, precious National Health Service (long may she reign). So through taxation we collectively support those living with diabetes (and other diseases and health issues). And should I, my family members, my friends or neighbours become sick, we will all be supported too. Nice huh. So I guess, what I’m saying is that the problem isn’t the price of insulin.

@QasimRashid This is what the Tories want to do to Britain.

@QasimRashid I don't have the full picture, but this really sounds like there is no competition at play that usually brings down prices. Is insulin production in the us a monopoly or is it more a matter of a cartel and price fixing?

@QasimRashid Very much agreed, but I’d propose to take this one step further. It’s part of the issue that the economy is run for and by the financial sector. This isn’t about mustachioed men in top hats going ‘muhaha’, it’s regular people comparing numbers on a spreadsheet because a network of business schools have changed the narrative from markets producing welfare for the populace (in exchange for benefits like infrastructure and limited liability) to shareholder value.