There is another proposal that could make it into the Senate budget deal that would cap the cost of insulin. More than 7 million Americans with diabetes use insulin and about 1 million put an enormous amount of their paycheck toward that medication. We spoke to some of those who are affected by this crucial medicine’s high prices and how a legislative proposal could impact their lives.
Kimberly cavanaugh takes pains to eat healthily carefully planning, prepping and cooking three meals a day. the key keeping her blood that starts with a dose of calculation and a shot of insulin. you know, i can always tell when my blood sugar is low or high without even testing it. my eyesight gets a little blurry or i’m sweating what i usually uses everything in here. the
Virginia resident is alive and stays alive because of insulin. in her early twenties, kimberly slipped just briefly in monitoring her blood sugar and missed that it was spiking. definitely could have died from it. your blood sugar gets so high that the sugar turns into acid in your so i actually was in a diabetic coma for three days. it was very scary, and that was just from
Not taking insulin for maybe two days. in the past, she’s rationed her doses because she couldn’t afford a full supply. the result. kidney and vision issues had a lot of laser surgeries. 2018 survey found that a quarter of meantime, black markets and insulin exchanges have become commonplace in some areas and online. kimberly is well covered now. but even so, the costs are
Daunting. even with insurance. it’s still costing me about $120 a month just for the insulin that’s not needles or test strips and going to the doctor. i go every three months. it’s prolonging my life, so it’s necessary more than 37 million americans live with diabetes that includes an astounding one in three seniors. some seven million americans depend on insulin. untreated
Diabetes is a monster disease, causing nerve damage, heart disease, stroke loss of limbs, and it’s a leading cause of death in america. despite such need and 100 years of existence, insulin list prices soared last decade. the idea of capping insulin costs is popular with voters. but it’s taken years to get this far now on the table as part of senate democrats proposed climate
And health care, bill, um what seems on the surface to be very popular healthcare policies passed through congress complexity of all of these systems, and it is really truly complex, how they’re different stakeholders. i do this for a living, and i’m confused all the time. i think andrew mulcahy is a health care economist with the rand corporation. there’s really a lot of
Variation and a lot of unknowns that our health care system and that makes it hard for anyone considering a policy alternative. just look at the insulin system. pharmaceutical companies set one price a list price that doubled between 2012 and 2017. according to the health care cost institute. it has decreased slightly in the past two years. next, though, an unusual industry
Pharmaceutical benefits managers, those are go betweens who negotiate a different and lower price for health insurers. how much exactly is often secret which critics say is now a big part of the problem. all of this leads to a host of prices at the pharmacy depends on how and if you are overall in the u. s. what patients pay for insulin is seven times plus higher than those
In other countries. so that’s an enormous difference. senate democrats plan would add incentives to boost competition and a $35 cap on out of pocket costs for a 30 day supply cutting costs for about a quarter of patients with insurance. but giving no help to those without insulin for me, is like air to anyone else. i use insulin around 6 to 7 times a day. just depending
On the day epic injection 32 year old mila clark turned her diabetic great as the hang green woman. her videos, spoon out recipes and pinches of get real advice for tasty, healthy food and navigating the medical system. through all of my videos, i try and answer questions that i know that i’ve had about diabetes management, but that i also know that people struggle with
And so we’ve got a bunch of really good stuff here. we have fears. there’s an element too few understand disparity in the system for the uninsured and people like her. general patients of color and specifically black patients and black women. we’ve kind of seen the stories about how hard it is to get listened to in the health care system. it took me four years to really
Convinced doctors that i was doing the things that they told me to do, and that it just wasn’t working. black and hispanic adults are 60 to 70% more likely to have diabetes than their white peers and even more likely to suffer consequences. dr. joshua joseph is an university wexner medical center. we think about the impact of diabetes and the higher prevalence of diabetes
In minorities populations here in the united states, it really had to think upstream and is really due to the structural inequities that we see in the united states and comes down to the social determinants of health for diabetics, so to kimberly cavanaugh. price cap on insulin would be a start. we’re talking about $35 period end of sentence like i could not be but if it’s
Just for someone who’s insured, i don’t think that’s good enough. there are more people like kimberly and mylan diagnosed with diabetes every day, grateful for any action. they also say washington needs to prep many more ingredients to tackle not just the cost of insulin, but the crisis underneath for the pbs news hour. i’m lisa
Transcribed from video
Congress tries to cap insulin costs as diabetics ration supplies By PBS NewsHour
