Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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I have had diabetes since I was 5 years old. Like millions of people with diabetes, I rely on insulin 24 hours a day to survive.
People like us are fighting for our lives due to the skyrocketing price of insulin. Year after year, the price goes up, leaving our population cash-strapped and forcing hard choices. When I hear stories of people who have to choose between paying their rent or paying for their medication, it sickens me.
Insulin has been around for nearly a century. With advancements in research and development, the price of insulin should be going down. Instead, pharmaceutical companies keep raising the price simply to pad their bottom lines. Between 1996 and 2006, the price of insulin increased by 700 percent. In 1996, the price of a 10-milliliter vial of fast-acting insulin cost $21, but the same vial today costs $275, making it unaffordable for many families.
Why?
The situation has become so dire that today, a quarter of patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes have made the dangerous and heart-wrenching decision to ration their insulin. In too many cases, the consequences are fatal.
There is no excuse for this. Drug companies are price gouging vulnerable patients, and it’s time for concrete action to hold them to account and bring prices down. Next week, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and her colleagues on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance will get an excellent opportunity when seven executives from some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world testify before them on rising drug prices.
Members of the committee can’t squander this opportunity to cut through the rhetoric and force Big Pharma executives to answer tough questions and address their anti-competitive, price-gouging tactics.
When it comes to paying for goods and services, consumers benefit from robust, market-driven competition. But when it comes to prescription drugs, pharmaceutical manufacturers take advantage of current policies to prevent competitors from entering the market.
When I go to my pharmacy to pick up a prescription, I am often shocked by the bill. But I’m forced to pay the high price because I don’t have the option of taking my business to a cheaper alternative. That’s because the world’s three largest makers of insulin control 99 percent of the marketplace, with no generic competitor. Without competition and open and honest pricing, patients are deprived of the information and decision-making power to control their treatment.
I’m one of the lucky ones who, although it is difficult, can still pay for my insulin and basic needs. But that isn’t the case for millions of other Americans who are forced to choose between paying for their medication or the necessities of life, like their electric bill or groceries.
For some, it means they can’t put fuel in their car to go to work or visit family or friends. I see too many people struggling to make ends meet because the drugs we need to survive cost too much. They often feel powerless and hopeless, wondering if they are ever going to see relief.
Without my insulin, I would die. Everyone should be able to afford the medicine they need to live. If something isn’t done to lower prices, there will continue to be real life-or-death consequences — not just for those with diabetes, but for people with a host of chronic diseases and conditions that require prescription drug treatment.
We need to fight. That’s why I’m calling on members of the Finance Committee to disallow executives from sliding through this key hearing with empty promises and fluffy rhetoric; instead, hold them accountable for taking advantage of this community and pledge to support concrete solutions.
Do the right thing. We want answers.
Millions of hard-working families are depending on members of Congress to work together to find solutions that make prescription drugs affordable. It’s time Congress send Big Pharma a message — that patients come first and their price-gouging tactics will no longer be tolerated.
Sarah Gleich is executive director of the Nevada Diabetes Association and the California Diabetes Association.
