Posted on 01/22/2019 11:26:02 AM PST by yesthatjallen
Per-person spending on insulin doubled in a recent five-year period, according to a report released Tuesday.
Individuals with type 1 diabetes spent an average of $5,705 on insulin in 2016, compared to $2,864 in 2012, according to a study from the Health Care Cost Institute.
The dollar amount represents the combined amount paid by a patient and their insurer, and doesn't include discounts given later.
The spending jump is largely driven by price increases, the authors wrote, and not because more people are using insulin.
Between that period, average daily insulin rose a modest 3 percent, the report says.
For an individual using an average amount of insulin, the price increased from $7.80 a day in 2012 to $15 a day in 2016.
Price increases have the biggest impact on the uninsured and those with high deductible health plans, which requires that customers pay a certain amount toward their health care before insurance kicks in.
Rising drug prices has caused national outcry in recent years, with the new Democratic House majority vowing to investigate.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee last week sent letters to a dozen drug companies seeking detailed information and documents about how they price their medications.
Several Democratic committee chairmen have also said they will call in drugmakers to explain price increases.
Remember when they told us ObamaCare would make health care more affordable?
Th only cost factor that went down for most (initially) were the monthly premiums. But many of us said back then that the American people were about to learn the definitions for "deductible" and "out-of-pocket maximum". Sadly, too many are plainly stupid or indifferent to have cared.
And, except for Type 1 people, it’s very questionable just how much, if any, Insulin is even needed.
I experienced no decrease in monthly premiums, at any time since 0bamacare. I did experience $6,600 deductible for just myself.
And, except for Type 1 people, it’s very questionable just how much, if any, Insulin is even needed.
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I was using 170 units a day per order of my Dr. Went on a low carb/high fat diet, with intemiitent fasting, and have not used an injection since Oct, 3rd
Really great about changing your diet, ditching insulin.
I was going to post dietary suggestions, but I never had diabetes, so your post is much more powerful. Hope people listen. Their doctors, of course, will tell them it won’t work. But it will.
Unfortunately, my son is Type 1. A bottle of his insulin is $289 retail. He uses a bottle every 10 days.
Really STOOOOOPID of Big Pharma if true as it is just going to fuel the drive for socialized medicine.
Get .gov out of college and healthcare, prices will fall dramatically. But, more importantly live a healthy lifestyle, watch your carbs, eat fat and move.
Why so much? generic insulin is fairly inexpensive.
I’m no expert, but I think in the facts that many users pay very little of the price themselves and the regulatory difficulty of introducing products to compete with the existing insulins we can find much of the answer.
When I first became diabetic, the insulins were derived from cows and pigs, insurance didn’t cover them, and so they cost about eight dollars a bottle. Before the 1980s were over they had introduced a new insulin called Humulin, which was made from genetically engineered bacteria and was identical chemically to human insulin. It cost about $16. In the 1990s, IIRC, new insulins were introduced that were genuinely better — Humalog, which started to take effect a mere five minutes or so after injection (unlike the half hour when it even started to take effect with the earlier insulins), and Lantus, which releases smoothly overnight, when insulin is needed but you can’t get up to inject it. This is where the combination of patient copay and insurance payment leads to “prices” of $250, although with my very good health insurance my copay is only $25, for a bottle of insulin (I take two types) that lasts about six weeks, It seems like more competition could help me, but it also seems it doesn’t happen.
Is it the newer insulins like Humalog and Lantus, or an older, and less effective, type? Also, is the $25 price you cite really just your co-pay?
The point here is many people don't realize that insulin is cheap if it's over the counter. Go to a doctor and get a script and the price is 10 fold.
It has nothing to do with ObamaCare....
It has everything to do with CEO’s simply raising commodity drug prices once they have ensured a monopoly... Obamacare has NOTHING to do with this crap..
The CEO’s who do this crap should be impaled and their carcasses left to rot..
Its beyond time that the voting public realized that Pharma money to politicians is far dirtier than tobacco company cash ever was.. and anyone taking it should INSTANTLY be unelectable again.
Insulin is insulin. The 70/30 works for most. Type 2 diabetes can be cured/mitigated so no insulin needed. Type 1s are in a different boat.
I pay $25 over the counter and no script. If you believe the doctor knows best and want the new advertised brands on TV, you will pay at least 10 times that. I came off of the pill type meds like Janumet that put me in the donut hole about Oct. I’m more satisfied with the $25 insulin that the $1000 bottle of Janumet for 90 days. The Janumet also has bad side effects.
Yep. And CVS, Walgreens, Etc. want $125 for Novalin-N cash price which is what they “try to” charge the insurance companies. But the insurance companies probably only actually pay $30. You know they are NOT paying anymore for it their cost wholesale than Walmart is. It is outright price gouging for cash purchases.
I have just heard that the PROLON system (5 day prepared fast) can reset things for type 1s...you might want to research...yes, I know..the belief is that you cannot change pancreas...but research is starting to question that.
My insurance decided to change the type of insulins I should use, without consulting with my doctor. I need to inject 5-6 times per day, so My insurance decided, without consulting with my doctor, that I only need to test my blood twice a day.
The insulin that my insurance “prescribed”, doesn’t work well for me, or anybody else for that matter, but I presume they prescribed it due to cost.
My doc put me on a new one, and I love it. It actually works 24 hours per day which greatly reduces my need for a fast acting insulin. The long acting that the insurance company prescribed only worked for 6-8 hrs though it was supposed to be good for 16-24 hours.
I did the keto diet for 3 months which made a big difference in the amount of insulin I needed, but I could never get to that place of being able to eliminate it, or reduce to negligible amounts. And then the diet began to cause me some serious issues, and I had to change that. But there were and are some long lasting benefits such as a huge reduction in blood pressure, and my hair began to grow back, my ability to fight infection has returned, so it did do my body some good.
Pancreatitis isn’t fun, and the heavy fats were resurrecting that in me among a few other embarrassing problems.
I’ve never been an obese person, quite the contrary.
I do thing that some docs have diabetes tendencies backwards. For example, being over weight provokes diabetes, but in fact, the metabolic issues create the overweight problems before diabetes is even noticed.
There are some diabetes docs who have discovered that to be the case.
“Fat person bad” id a huge lie and coverup to deflect the horrid mess the experts have made with the food pyramid. A high starch diet is dangerous for nearly everyone, and is a major cause of heart and circulatory issues.
But, it keeps pharmaceutical companies profiting, keeps heart meds high, diabetes meds high, and helps to create cancers...sugar feeds cancers, and nails the hell out of the immune system.
When I didn’t have insurance, I used to be able to buy a bottle of insulin dor just under $20. The last time I bought insulin out of pocket, the same bottle had risen to $37. Some of tje ones I have to take now cost over $200 per bottle. The cost of test strips is through the roof too. And then there are lancets and needles. Twenty years ago it cost around $300 per month to support this metabolic habit, its a lot more expensibe now.
Insulin is up to 4 or 5 times more expensive in the USA than other countries, like Canada and UK. Other drugs are similarly marked up, and we continue to allow the pharmaceutical companies to gouge us.
Just another way we "rich, capitalist American pigs" subsidize the rest of the world's socialism. The UN, NATO, horrible trade deals, theft of our technology and intellectual property, acting as the world's police, foreign aid, inflated drug prices, illegal immigrants and refugees stealing our social support services, climate change, and more. We are being bled dry, and unless people wake up soon, it will be too late to save us.
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