The American Diabetes Association says millions of Americans are paying a steep price to stay alive. The organization wants congress to hold hearings to uncover the cause for the soaring cost of insulin. Many people with diabetes, especially those with type one, can die without insulin and they’re more at risk of severe complications, like blindness, amputation, and heart disease.
At Thompson Pharmacy in Altoona, Pharmacist Peter Kreckel remembers that a small bottle of insulin cost about six dollars, 35 years ago. Today it’s early 250-dollars a bottle. It’s two-and-a-half times as expensive as it was only 5 years ago.
Kreckel says there’s no reason for the extreme price increase. The drug is created in a laboratory using e. coli and the price of that hasn’t gone up.
“We need to be able to get ahold of these extreme costs of medication,” he says. “This isn’t Viagra, these aren’t comfort drugs, these are drugs…life or death depend on whether a diabetic has their next dose of insulin.”
Kreckel blames the soaring price increases on greed. He says, while, for people on Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance, the co-pay may just be four dollars, in many cases, we all pay, because taxpayers pick up the balance of the $240-plus bill for each bottle of insulin.
