Thinking as a society on the insulin crisis and health care
I recently returned from visiting family in Norway and traveling in several other European countries. A common question I was asked is why a wealthy nation like the United States does not provide universal health insurance for all its citizens. As I was departing in early June, the health crisis created by the high cost of insulin was fresh in my mind. A bill in the Minnesota Legislature to provide emergency insulin to those in need had just failed to pass.
Not surprisingly, news of the insulin crisis was covered by European media, including the case of Alex Smith, the 26-year-old Minnesotan who died in 2017 as a result of rationing insulin after he was no longer covered by his parent’s plan. As most Minnesotans know from media coverage, the legislation was named in Smith’s memory.
France24, a major French television station, reported on a diabetic in Kentucky who had gone to purchase insulin in Canada, where a vial costs $22, while the same retail pharmacy in the U.S. charged over $300. The headline read: “The price of insulin is killing Americans.” A sad commentary on our nation. Successive U.S. governments — from George W. Bush’s Medicare D plan to Obamacare to the Trump administration — bet on the marketplace to lower costs. Yet costs continue to rise and U.S. health care outcomes have declined to nearly last among our peer nations.
Not an isolated problem
The insulin crisis is not an isolated problem, but a result of our relying on an ineffective, bureaucratic, private, for-profit health insurance system. Public systems in Canada and Europe keep drug costs in check because pharmaceutical firms and pharmacy distributors are prevented from gouging the public. Competition from generic producers is encouraged, and negotiations on prices provide for accountability and transparency.
Read more: https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2019/08/thinking-as-a-society-on-the-insulin-crisis-and-health-care/
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