Responding to massive public pressure about the high price of life-saving insulin for people with diabetes, the insurance giant Cigna and its drug benefit arm, Express Scripts, aim to reduce the monthly cost of insulin from $40, on average, to $25 for many patients.
For many, the reduction in out-of-pocket cost could be much greater. Depending on how a health plan is designed, some patients now pay, on average, $100 a month. And some patients are hit by costs of hundreds of dollars in a single month.
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It is Groundhog Day all over again. The pharmaceutical industry and their allies in corporate media, are using this corporate PR Stunt, to normalize the ongoing corruption in pharma. These clever industry think tanks are fighting a national healthcare program that would counter the corporate profiteering. We saw the very same propaganda campaign after the Epi Pen debacle.
The US is the only country that allows corporate profiteering over public health. We can see that it is a disaster, and even worse the propaganda campaign by pharma has instigated online attacks on people who need Insulin to live. Diabetes can lead to a horrible and painful death, and lack of Insulin can lead to infections, amputations and blindness. Untreated Diabetes is even more expensive than Insulin, yet our medical system continues to allow this kind of profiteering.
Tripichick, do your research before you opine on this. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Has nothing to do with lifestyle. And even if it was a so-called lifestyle disease, so what? Not everyone is as perfect as you apparently must be. We bow down to your wonderfulness.
we know profit is all that matters. so the patients do ok with less of your product. American health is such a joke. after transcribing for 25byears, i am so done with it.
I do not understand what this will mean……Insulin is needed for people who have diabetes. “A recent study said that a quarter of people with diabetes who used insulin admitted to cutting back on their medicine because of cost.” This is a public health issue. Why is there no outrage? Why don’t the insurance companies limit the costs? They limit cost on hospitals, on DME, why not drugs, especially essential drugs??
Why is it possible for Lilly to suddenly create their own branded generic seemingly overnight (while they no doubt fight it out in court to prevent other company’s generics/biosimilars), and for Cigna to suddenly find the ability to enact $25/month price for insulin for some patients. Hmmm. Would that mean that they are doing all the egregious things they do BECAUSE THEY CAN? Gee, I thought the high prices were because of all the risks pharma takes, and because they have to price things the way they do to make all our lives better with more me-too and $50K/yr drugs, and so on and so on and so on. Just a bunch of lies. Our healthcare system is demented. This system allows pharma and insurers to drive US patients into bankruptcy–that’s a great system. When the number-one reason for fundraising on GoFundMe is to pay medical bills and medical debt is the number one reason for personal bankruptcy, is it any wonder Medicare for All has growing support?
anyone care to venture a guess at how much the doctors who discovered insulin made for their discover? $1. The patents were made public virtually at the time of discovery…. because the scientists felt that the discovery was too important to try and profit from. Any idea where insulin was discovered?
Yeah, Canada. You know, that single-payer, more humane nation to our north. Discovered in Canada, the patent given away for $1 to the University of Toronto. For the betterment of patients everywhere. Until that generosity was hijacked by corporate US pharma, which distorted it into what we have today.
How will this affect Medicare part D? I am paying over $1000 a quarter.
Sue~~ what exactly do you for your $1000/quarter? Wouldn’t you be better off if you started exercising and eating less? I had a career-ending stroke but still get up and walk 10 miles a week to bird-watch. But I’m not a fan of American everything-for-a-profit health care after supporting my family for 20 years with medical transcription.
tripichick – Not every diabetic is overweight or otherwise unhealthy. I’m tired of others being judged by uneducated people like yourself. You survived a stroke; good for you. How much did that cost? If you can walk a mile a day, surely there is more to life than bird-watching…
I am type 1 and require long and short acting insulin I produce no insulin and will die without it
this is all a crock, they will lower the cost to $25 while at the same time, increasing the cost of the test strips and needles needed to use this medication
The beauty of US private health insurance. They will lower the price to 25$, and then will increase the cost of insurance coverage by 50$
Let’s do this for a whole lot more essential drugs that are proven preventive, curative, etc. Let’s find a way so every patient benefits. Let’s keep an eye on and cap the deductibles too.