Insulin Prices to Skyrocket under Biden Administration

 

Well, that was quick.

This hits close to home. I have been a type 1 diabetic since age seven. I’m in good health though. I take care of myself, diabetes is just another thing I have to take care of on my daily to-do list. But the financial burden is a different story.

Deregulation under the Trump Administration led to me paying the lowest insulin prices I’ve ever paid. For the first time ever, I actually had money left in my flex-spending account last year. The company I work for has you select benefits for the upcoming year in October (so before the election). I hedged my bets on Trump winning, and contributed less this year. Boy was that dumb in hindsight.

In many ways, this is a return to normal. DC doesn’t care about the average person, just special interests. And Big Pharma is embedded deeper into the swamp than anyone. This is why Trump was such a threat. He fought for the average person. He didn’t achieve everything I wanted him to, and in many ways he only rhetorically fought the swamp, but there were a lot of small victories in that four years.

It’s only going to get worse from here. This is what happens when you have a population that votes completely ignorant of policy.

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I hope they are happy.

    • #1
  2. Nohaaj Coolidge
    Nohaaj
    @Nohaaj

    I can not like this post, it makes me so very frustrated and angry. 

    • #2
  3. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    But at least he doesn’t say and tweet mean things. My feelings are all that matters. 

    • #3
  4. DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone Member
    DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone
    @DrewInWisconsin

    You know, I was really, really okay with the mean Tweets.

    • #4
  5. Raxxalan Member
    Raxxalan
    @Raxxalan

    I really never want to hear politicians say they are fighting for the little guy again.  They aren’t the only time they care about the little guy at all is when they are scraping him off the bottom of their shoe.

    • #5
  6. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    DrewInEastHillAutonomousZone (View Comment):

    You know, I was really, really okay with the mean Tweets.

    Me, too, Drew. 

     

    • #6
  7. MISTER BITCOIN Inactive
    MISTER BITCOIN
    @MISTERBITCOIN

    @jamessalerno – I am so sorry.  This is infuriating

     

    • #7
  8. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    Just want to add some more information, as there’s a lot to unpack here. Cheap plug to my Land of Confusion podcast appearance where David, Don and I discussed this further: https://ricochet.com/880223/loc-38-with-james-salerno/

    Insulin has been around since the 1920’s. Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923 for their work in developing insulin for human use. For a long time, animal insulin (mostly from pigs) was used to develop the drug. Now, it can be engineered on the cheap. Eli Lilly is the biggest producer of insulin in the US, and they effectively monopolize the market. Novo Nordisk and Sanofi do the same in other parts of the world. So while insulin can be manufactured cheaply, to understand why it is so expensive, you have to understand patents, regulations and government-backed monopolies.

    Insulin is expensive because competition is not allowed. Most people take two types of insulin, one long-acting type for the entire day, and a short-acting type for meals. I use Lantus and Humalog. There are other types, but they are not variations, more like “alternate approaches.” When I was younger, I took a different type of long-acting insulin because my metabolism was higher. So while you have options, it’s very dependent on your health situation. And all are distributed by the same company.

    There are “fancy” ways of taking insulin now, such as pumps, 24/7 monitors, etc. Those are expensive, but most people prefer the convenience. I could care less about that stuff, I use the vial and the syringe. Old School. It takes less than a minute to do my shot and insurance covers more. Most insurance companies see the convenient options as a luxury, and do not cover them. So if you’re like me, you can save quite a bit using the “analog” method instead of the “digital.” I also do not like the monitors and pumps because I don’t like something being attached to me 24/7. I tried the monitor once on a free trial and hated it. It would fall off my arm when I exercised, and it made combat sports impossible. And if you’re on the beach, it looks weird.

    So while I do my best to stay as cheap as possible, these instruments are all controlled by the same companies. You don’t really have “generic” options when it comes to insulin. The government patent laws allow these companies to monopolize the market and maximize profits to obscene levels (remember Milton Friedman – all monopolies are created by government). Trump chipped away at some of the regulations that were leftover from the prior administrations (and it wasn’t just Obamacare, this problem has been growing for a long time). This is why Trump was so hated by those in power. Big Pharma is crony capitalism at it’s finest. Socialized medicine? We’re there already.

    • #8
  9. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    JamesSalerno (View Comment):
    Insulin has been around since the 1920’s. Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923 for their work in developing insulin for human use.

    I would have expected the prize to be in physiology and medicine, not peace. The peace prize is mostly rubbish anyway.

    • #9
  10. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    MISTER BITCOIN (View Comment):

    @ jamessalerno – I am so sorry. This is infuriating

     

    Thanks. I’ll be ok. I make enough to live comfortably. That wasn’t the case when I was in my twenties under Obama. I feel for the people who aren’t as well off as me. The ones who don’t make enough to afford it, but also don’t parasite off of the government. It’s the middle class who always suffers.

    • #10
  11. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    JamesSalerno (View Comment):

     You don’t really have “generic” options when it comes to insulin. The government patent laws allow these companies to monopolize the market and maximize profits to obscene levels…

    Could you expand on this? Patents have a fairly short life. I’m not clear on why many patents would not have expired already thereby making generic versions available.

    • #11
  12. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    drlorentz (View Comment):

    JamesSalerno (View Comment):
    Insulin has been around since the 1920’s. Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923 for their work in developing insulin for human use.

    I would have expected the prize to be in physiology and medicine, not peace. The peace prize is mostly rubbish anyway.

    *Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. My bad!

    • #12
  13. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    Sounds like a good basis for impeachment since it doesn’t take anything to impeach someone these days.

    • #13
  14. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I hope they are happy.

    Actually, I hope they’re miserable.

    • #14
  15. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    drlorentz (View Comment):

    JamesSalerno (View Comment):

    You don’t really have “generic” options when it comes to insulin. The government patent laws allow these companies to monopolize the market and maximize profits to obscene levels…

    Could you expand on this? Patents have a fairly short life. I’m not clear on why many patents would not have expired already thereby making generic versions available.

    Sorry, I really can’t. I try to understand it as best as I can, but the layers of red tape are so deep it’s hard to follow every strand. The best I understand is that patents work a little differently in medicine. Pharmaceuticals operate under completely different rules than everything else. Even though they’re technically a commodity, they don’t really have a market in the traditional sense. There’s far too many middle men between the buyer and the seller. Basically, there’s an awful lot of government in there mucking things up. Government makes everything more expensive.

    • #15
  16. Mim526 Inactive
    Mim526
    @Mim526

    JamesSalerno:

    This hits close to home. I have been a type 1 diabetic since age 7. I’m in good health though. I take care of myself, diabetes is just another thing I have to take care of on my daily to-do list. But the financial burden is a different story.

    @jamessalerno just so everyone is aware of what’s at stake, would you mind telling people what happens if you do not receive the insulin Biden’s administration has caused the price to skyrocket again by freezing Trump’s executive orders to reduce prescription meds?

    • #16
  17. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    Mim526 (View Comment):

    JamesSalerno:

    This hits close to home. I have been a type 1 diabetic since age 7. I’m in good health though. I take care of myself, diabetes is just another thing I have to take care of on my daily to-do list. But the financial burden is a different story.

    @ jamessalerno just so everyone is aware of what’s at stake, would you mind telling people what happens if you do not receive the insulin Biden’s administration has caused the price to skyrocket again by freezing Trump’s executive orders to reduce prescription meds?

    I get to meet my grandparents and pets that I had as kid :)

    • #17
  18. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    You also have to take insurance into consideration. They add to the layers of complexity. What we consider health insurance isn’t really insurance. You don’t buy house insurance when your house is on fire.

    In a free market, alternate options would pop up to help people like me. Private charity, fraternal organizations, catastrophic care policies. This is why I always say there is no such thing as a failure of capitalism. Every perceived “failure” is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to solve a problem. That’s literally the origin of every good/service. Someone solved a problem by making something consumers wanted.

    Insurance is a separate beast with it’s own interests. Most people have insurance under their employer, so they don’t really have a say in what is covered. And employers have their own special interests. I remember a few years ago getting furious at the company I worked for. They announced coverage for gender transitions up to 75,000. While my insulin prices were going up. That’s not a free market. But I’m sure the corporation got all sorts of tax breaks for being down with the cause.

    The insurance companies also have a say in how drugs are prescribed. 90 day prescriptions were eliminated for me under Obamacare. They would only fill 30 days, one vial at a time. The Trump deregulations brought back 90 day prescriptions, and they were loose. I was getting 5 or 6 vials every refill, for cheaper, and that lasted me far longer than 90 days.

    • #18
  19. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Raxxalan (View Comment):

    I really never want to hear politicians say they are fighting for the little guy again. They aren’t the only time they care about the little guy at all is when they are scraping him off the bottom of their shoe.

    You don’t want to hear: My father shined the shoes of our postman’s bartender?

    • #19
  20. PHCheese Inactive
    PHCheese
    @PHCheese

    James first what was the lowest price under Trump and have you tried getting it from Canada? I get my asthma medicine there at about a tenth of the price. I use a company named the North Drug Store.  Never had a problem but it does take about 3 weeks to arrive.

    • #20
  21. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    PHCheese (View Comment):

    James first what was the lowest price under Trump and have you tried getting it from Canada? I get my asthma medicine there at about a tenth of the price. I use a company named the North Drug Store. Never had a problem but it does take about 3 weeks to arrive.

    Both are considered 90 day prescriptions. Just realized I haven’t refilled these since June, so I guess they gave me way more than 90 days:

    Lantus, was $765.61, $100 after insurance.

    Humalog was $2,225.07, $25 after insurance.

    I can’t find information on how many vials those prescriptions included. IIRC, it was around 6 or 7 vials of each. I was paying around $200 every month, out of pocket, five years ago.

    • #21
  22. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    You might enjoy a book that John Walker recommended a while back: The Drug Lord

    It’s #2 of a three-part (so far) series. 1) The Speculator  2) The Drug Lord  3)  The Assassin  (best read in order)

    The characters are a bit contrived, and there’s lots of libertarian speechifying. But they’re all very satisfying in a “I hate the government” sort of way.

    And I think we’ll be hearing more and more stories like yours. Infuriating and tragic.

     

     

    • #22
  23. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    Just an FYI, a friend posted about the price of insulin on Facebook and was fact checked. As if the people buying the stuff can’t tell you what is cost then and now. 

    • #23
  24. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    JamesSalerno (View Comment):

    Just want to add some more information, as there’s a lot to unpack here. Cheap plug to my Land of Confusion podcast appearance where David, Don and I discussed this further: https://ricochet.com/880223/loc-38-with-james-salerno/

    Insulin has been around since the 1920’s. Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923 for their work in developing insulin for human use. For a long time, animal insulin (mostly from pigs) was used to develop the drug. Now, it can be engineered on the cheap. Eli Lilly is the biggest producer of insulin in the US, and they effectively monopolize the market. Novo Nordisk and Sanofi do the same in other parts of the world. So while insulin can be manufactured cheaply, to understand why it is so expensive, you have to understand patents, regulations and government-backed monopolies.

    Insulin is expensive because competition is not allowed. Most people take two types of insulin, one long-acting type for the entire day, and a short-acting type for meals. I use Lantus and Humalog. There are other types, but they are not variations, more like “alternate approaches.” When I was younger, I took a different type of long-acting insulin because my metabolism was higher. So while you have options, it’s very dependent on your health situation. And all are distributed by the same company.

    There are “fancy” ways of taking insulin now, such as pumps, 24/7 monitors, etc. Those are expensive, but most people prefer the convenience. I could care less about that stuff, I use the vial and the syringe. Old School. It takes less than a minute to do my shot and insurance covers more. Most insurance companies see the convenient options as a luxury, and do not cover them. So if you’re like me, you can save quite a bit using the “analog” method instead of the “digital.” I also do not like the monitors and pumps because I don’t like something being attached to me 24/7. I tried the monitor once on a free trial and hated it. It would fall off my arm when I exercised, and it made combat sports impossible. And if you’re on the beach, it looks weird.

    So while I do my best to stay as cheap as possible, these instruments are all controlled by the same companies. You don’t really have “generic” options when it comes to insulin. The government patent laws allow these companies to monopolize the market and maximize profits to obscene levels (remember Milton Friedman – all monopolies are created by government). Trump chipped away at some of the regulations that were leftover from the prior administrations (and it wasn’t just Obamacare, this problem has been growing for a long time). This is why Trump was so hated by those in power. Big Pharma is crony capitalism at it’s finest. Socialized medicine? We’re there already.

    Actually part of the problem is that CMS changed the way it does contracting for Medicare. In the past the contracts weren’t winner take all- that kept competitors in the field for the next competition. But being penny wise and pound foolish the feds began to give the entire contract to the lowest bidder- who soon became the only supplier b/c the competition went out of business.  So a few years later the price goes up b/c there are fewer bidders who can compete anymore. A second problem with this is no redundancy in supply- any trouble at the only factory making the drug and you have an instant shortage. This is particularly true with generic drugs- get a hurricane in the wrong spot and presto no medication ( or if that factory fails an inspection). We have had more drug shortages the last 5 or so years than the preceding 20.

    • #24
  25. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    The real blame belongs to Lyin’ Ryan, McConnell, and their Congressional RepubliCAN’T gang. They lied to us for 6 years to gain personal power and wealth. Then they subverted our republic with their active collusion in every deep state scheme to deny and nullify the 2016 election, predicate to blatantly rigging the 2020 election.

    • #25
  26. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I’m sure my wife (who takes insulin) would also like to personally “thank” the never-Trumpers for their contribution to reducing our net retirement income . . .

    • #26
  27. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Stad (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I’m sure my wife (who takes insulin) would also like to personally “thank” the never-Trumpers for their contribution to reducing our net retirement income . . .

    Who won’t be in this thread. 

    I can’t help but notice every single NT on Ricochet is just dead quiet when it comes to what Biden is doing. 

     

    • #27
  28. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I’m sure my wife (who takes insulin) would also like to personally “thank” the never-Trumpers for their contribution to reducing our net retirement income . . .

    Who won’t be in this thread.

    I can’t help but notice every single NT on Ricochet is just dead quiet when it comes to what Biden is doing.

     

    What could they say?

    • #28
  29. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I’m sure my wife (who takes insulin) would also like to personally “thank” the never-Trumpers for their contribution to reducing our net retirement income . . .

    Who won’t be in this thread.

    I can’t help but notice every single NT on Ricochet is just dead quiet when it comes to what Biden is doing.

     

    What could they say?

    They should defend their positions and explain how this is better than another 4 years of Trump. I want to hear from them how they are right and we are wrong, and this sort of thing is just the price we pay. 

    Or I want them to be honest they were wrong.

    Either one of those pathways shows integrity. Anything else does not. 

    • #29
  30. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    Just what every Biden Voter voted for.

    I’m sure my wife (who takes insulin) would also like to personally “thank” the never-Trumpers for their contribution to reducing our net retirement income . . .

    Who won’t be in this thread.

    I can’t help but notice every single NT on Ricochet is just dead quiet when it comes to what Biden is doing.

     

    Good point.  All you see are “Trump deserves a second impeachment and conviction” posts and comments instead of “What a great job Biden is doing!  More freedom for everyone!”

    • #30
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