By: Jose Galvan
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| Insulin (by iStock Photo) |
Recently, the price on insulin has been capped the price by the Biden administration for everyone on Medicare to $35. This has saved millions of people hundreds of dollars a month on their (necessary, life saving, required) prescription. Following suit, Eli Lilly, the largest manufacturer of insulin in the US lowered the price of their medicine, capping the out-of-pocket price to $35. According to the 2020 census, the population this would affect is almost 27 million people. So what does this look like to the average person? How much of an impact does this have an someone who was otherwise, paying tons and tons of money for the medicine they wouldn't be able to live without
Javon Tucker, a local commuter from Savannah and Statesboro, weighed in on the effects of the price cap. Tucker mentioned how such a price cap benefitted them. Tucker, a Type 1 Diabetic, has needed to take insulin for all of his life. As such, he's needed to pay exorbitant prices as time went on. Tucker was quoted of paying upwards of $100 dollars for a vial of insulin at one point. Tucker also complained about dealing with insurance and pharmacies on the matter, expressing a hope that with the price cap, even if something goes wrong. Before parting, Tucker mentioned hope for this to set a precedent for "Big Pharma", and that other companies should find it in their heart to follow suit.
Similar sentiments were voiced by another Type 1 diabetic, Quin DeGarlais. DeGarlais, a nursing student at Georgia Southern, has historically had trouble with the pharmacy and her insulin.
"Just like my [other prescriptions], sometimes it seems so difficult just to get a hold of them at time. I literally need this to live, why am I arguing like I'm at a pawn shop? I'm glad my insurance is pretty good, but why should anyone ever have to pay so much just to live? No one else needs to do that!"
DeGarlais, as well, mentioned their gripes with big pharmaceutical companies, and their historic "greediness" as she puts it.
"Think about it, there's a reason they're called Big Pharma. There was that one guy, Martin Shkreli, who skyrocketed his AIDS medicine to thousands of dollars, just because he could. The guy who first made insulin wanted it to be public information and sold the patent for like a dollar right? Imagine if all medicine was affordable like that?"
This is only continuing a trend of the necessity for more medicine to be price capped. Realistically, the only motivator for higher and higher medicine prices is profit margins for giant corporate companies. While other arguments can stem to funding and research for more development of medicine, Eli Lilly has been recording increasing profits, hitting up to $34.12 billion in 2023.
The bottom line is, medicine needs to be cheaper. People who are giving up arms and legs just to continue living don't deserve to live like this. Greed is rampant in the pharmaceutical and medical industry (look at Goldman Sachs; is curing patients a sustainable business model?) and by just introducing price caps like this on more medicine, people won't be as stressed, struggling to make ends meet just to get medicine.
Big Pharma needs to institute more price caps, before their clients swimming in debt all drown.