Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/25/insulin-prices-are-killing-peo.html
…
12 Likes
What everyone fails to consider is the terrible impact this will have on the shareholders, who have invested some of their hard-earned capital gains from their tobacco and defense industry stocks into these pharmaceutical companies, and whose dividends may be somewhat diminished. SOMEWHAT DIMINISHED, I SAY!
29 Likes
Well, if they would just not, uh, buy a new smartphone, every…month then… Wait, every month…save the amount it would cost to…hold on, my anti-millenial math works out, I swear.
23 Likes
FUck.
“How did I end up in this little hell?”
5 Likes
I didn’t take a picture of the slides, so this is paraphrased, but I was recently struck by a factoid showing that the top 10 drugs in 2009 made ~$35.4B in profits and served ~200M people whereas the top 10 drugs in 2018 made ~$87.9B and served only ~50M people. Rent-seeking on Humira alone made AbbVie about ~$14B more in 2018 than it did on 2009.
There’s a strong argument for cutting out PBMs and insurers when it comes to necessary generics like insulin and going over to direct sales to consumers. While I’m generally skeptical of the gospel of free markets, the opacity introduced by PBMs and insurers in renegotiating prices, kickbacks, and formulary placements are all anti-competitive measures that are screwing over consumers.
14 Likes
That’s what it is to be a slave, to live in fear.
Roy Batty / Blade Runner
21 Likes
Diabetes is killing people.
Our lack of humanity is failing to save them.
9 Likes
Working as intended?
I mean somewhere (probably several somewheres) an ice-blooded accountant has worked out the revenue maximization curve for this and has forwarded a memo to the CFO telling them exactly how many insulin dependent diabetics must die each month in order to maximize shareholder value.
12 Likes
I’ll never understand this stuff. With my current insurance I just picked up three vials of Humalog (insulin) for a total of $105. Two years ago, with different insurance, I was paying more than that for one vial.
2 Likes
Not only that, but a drug that was intended to be cheaply available to those who need it by the guy who discovered it. It was never supposed to be a profitable drug, the whole idea was to keep people from dying.
Sadly, it’s also not just insulin.
25 Likes
Famously, Banting, Collip, and Best sold their patents to the University of Toronto for $1.00 each.
(And that’s $1.00 Canadian. 
)
16 Likes
I don’t know the history of this. But whatever patent Banting and Best sold, it couldn’t have had much to do with modern insulin production.
I find this hard to understand, as there is a standard National Health Service prescription charge of £9, whatever the drug costs to the NHS. And as I am over 60, I get it free.
5 Likes
(deep, accusatory inhale)
"AVOCADO TOAST!!"
13 Likes
You’re not thinking enough like a free-market capitalist.
4 Likes
THIS IS NOT WHAT A FUCKING CIVILISED COUNTRY DOES.
My teenage son was diagnosed with type 1 on 1st April last year (“worst April Fool’s Day prank ever, dad”) and have been amazed at how much support we get through our single-payer system. Needles are free; test strips get roughly a 75% subsidy; and insulin is also subsidised (universally, so I can’t even tell you how much). Insulin gets a further subsidy if you have a health care card (which is given largely to low-income households).
It’s sobering to think that if he was born a century earlier he’d be dead by now, and that if we lived in the US I’d be constantly worried about my employment status and health insurance. What a productive way of making docile, scared employees. Is that a bug or a feature?
If ever there was a case why a medical support system driven entirely by the market is wrong and immoral, it’s this.
25 Likes
It was a patent for insulin production that has been superseded by other methods. Companies have made incremental improvements that have allowed them to keep their products under patent and charge ever-increasing amounts. Note that the original insulin produced nearly a century ago would still save the lives of diabetics, except that no producers will make it any more.
Banting sold his car to fund his research, and he and Best tested insulin on themselves before any other human trials. They didn’t consider it ethical to profit from a lifesaving drug. That’s why their names are remembered in the 21st century as anticapitalist losers. /s
12 Likes
I’m certainly not defending big pharma. But the insulin I use has nothing in common with the insulin of Banting and Best’s day.
They didn’t sell a patent for manufacturing human insulin from genetically engineered E. coli.
1 Like
Oh, don’t worry. For now, at least, you can spend a zillion dollars to buy your own insurance, no employer required!
2 Likes
Most americans actually agree when you look at the polls and studies.
The only people who are actually against it aren’t even people. They’re health insurance companies. And they demand republicans whip up mass panic to keep their “system” of kickbacks and fake prices extremely profitable.
When you sit down and explain universal healthcare, most (close to 75% in some cases more) americans say “how do I sign up?”
We’re essentially held hostage by hysterical non-human malevolences.
12 Likes
