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What Next - Why Insulin Prices Keep Rising

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Business, News, Society & Culture

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s a rare bi-partisan point of agreement: the price of insulin is too high—and it’s still rising. With the stakes literally life-or-death for millions of Americans, what can be done?


Guest: Bram Sable-Smith, Midwest correspondent for Kaiser Health News.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

At the State of the Union address, President Joe Biden shouted out one constituency in particular.

0:12.0

One in ten Americans has diabetes. Many of you in this chamber do and

0:17.0

in the audience. But every day millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can literally stay alive.

0:27.0

Biden also had some choice words for the drug companies involved in that business. It cost the drug companies roughly $10 a

0:36.9

vial to make that insulin. Packaging in all you may get up to $13. But Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars,

0:47.1

four to five hundred dollars a month, making record profits. Not anymore. Not anymore.

0:59.6

The fact is, the price of insulin has gone up dramatically, more than a thousand percent in the last 20 years.

1:07.0

Bram Sable Smith was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about 11 years ago.

1:13.2

And even with insurance coverage,

1:15.2

he's noticed the cost of his own insulin

1:17.6

creep up over that time.

1:20.0

You know, my first viol of insulin

1:21.6

costs me about $25 after insurance.

1:25.0

That was in 2011 and then time went on in 2016 or so I was paying over a hundred dollars for my supply of insulin. That was two violets of insulin.

1:36.1

So there I'm seeing it right there in my life.

1:41.5

Bram reports for Kaiser Health News and living with a chronic disease means there are times

1:46.5

when his life starts to intersect with his work. Last year he wrote an article titled,

1:52.4

I Write About America's absurd health care system,

1:55.6

then I got caught up in it.

1:57.9

The story Bram tells in the article is infuriating.

2:01.3

For people suffering from diabetes, it's also not so uncommon. After he moved

2:06.7

to start a new job, Bram had trouble getting a hold of more insulin. When he called up the pharmacy to get things sorted, he learned that his new employer

...

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