diabetes — BLOG — Little Lobbyists

Keep Health Care in Mind When You Vote (by Jodi Aleshire)

It's the eleven year anniversary of my diabetes diagnosis and the government still wants me dead!

My brand of insulin costs $340 if I were to be uninsured. That's $0.34 a unit. A unit is ONE HUNDREDTH of a mL. If something seems wrong about that to you, that's because it is. (1)

Technological advances has increased to the point where human and analog insulin can be produced for under SEVEN DOLLARS a vial. For anyone following along at home, that's a nearly 5,000% increase in cost. (2)

It's estimated by the World Health Organization that the average diabetic will use 40 units of insulin a day. At the current price point, without decent health insurance, living a single day costs about $14. A week $95. A month $432. A year comes in at just under $5,000. (1)

There are no "generic" insulin brands on the market, no older options like "pork" or "beef," so to say, animal-based insulins, available in the United States any longer. This is due to "evergreening," a technique used by the big three insulin producers (Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk) slightly tweaking the formulas for their insulin before their patents can expire, thus extending the patent. (3, 4)

That's why a drug that has been around since the 1920s is still so expensive. While, yes, progress has obviously been made, the Big 3 have slowed the process of change, with Sanofi filing a lawsuit against two producers, Merck and Mylan, from introducing a generic form of Sanofi's primary insulin. (4)

Now, you may be saying "if it costs so much, just suck it up and get health insurance. It's not the government's fault that you don't -" yeah, I’m gonna need you to stop. Because this is where the issue of Big Pharma and the American government's lax health care collide.

This past year, TWENTY STATES filed a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act (which in March of 2010 made it so that insurance companies couldn't penalize those of us with preexisting conditions by refusing us health care) that moved to revoke the protections in place for us. Texas vs Azar went so far as to say that the protection placed on pre-existing conditions was "unconstitutional." I guess they missed the "life" part of that whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" bit. (5)

Not only have legislators tried to take away something that keeps people with pre-existing conditions from, often, a painful, PREVENTABLE death, we've had to watch them mock us in the media. Mo Brooks (R-AL) decided that we simply weren't "living the right way." Or Mick Mulvaney (Officer of Budget and Management for the Trump Administration) declaring "that doesn’t mean that we want to take care of the person, or should be required to take care of the person, who sits home, drinks Coca-Cola, no offense, drinks sugary drinks, and doesn’t exercise, and eats poorly and gets diabetes." Which not only shows a fundamental lack of knowledge on diabetes, but a lack of empathy as well. (6, 7)

While the ACA has yet to be repealed, the window to apply for insurance through the ACA has been shortened from 90 days to 45 days and the awareness budget has been slashed by 90%. Now, there's also the option for Medicaid, which at base-country wide level, will offer coverage if you're under the 138% poverty mark- with individual states having the option to expand coverage to under that point.

I make under $9,000 a year and I only fall at the 73% poverty point, to help put things into perspective. And a basic plan at that rate, without Medicaid, runs on the national average (for me, a single household 21 year old nonsmoker) between $230 and $370 dollars. That's more than my rent if you were curious. (8)

All this to say, health insurance, even with aid, still isn't cheap. And when the cost of insulin is so high, there are still out of pocket charges you have to pay monthly. I know diabetics who have gone without insulin because they just can't afford it; they can't afford insulin; they're trying to save their parents' money. (9)

Diabetes affects over 30 million Americans, with 1.2 million having Type 1 specifically. There are, on average, 1.5 million new cases diagnosed each year. In 2017, the nationwide total cost of diagnosed diabetes came in at 327 BILLION dollars. It comes as no surprise that diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in America. (10)

I'm 21 years old, and today, I've been diabetic for eleven years. The average life expectancy for a Type 1 diabetic is 15 years shorter than that of the average person. For a woman in the United States, the average is 81. (11)

That means for me, that average is 66. According to statistics, I've got 45 years left. And I'll be damned if the government takes a single year of it.

So do me a favor for my anniversary, keep health care in mind when you vote.