More Americans can now get insulin for $35 | CNN Politics
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More Americans with diabetes will get a break on their insulin costs in 2024.

More Americans with diabetes will get a break on their insulin costs in 2024.

Sanofi is joining the nation’s two other major insulin manufacturers in offering either price caps or savings programs that lower the cost of the drugs to $35 for many patients. The three drugmakers are also drastically lowering the list prices for their products.

The moves were announced in the spring, but some didn’t take effect until January 1.

Drugmakers have come under fire for years for steeply raising the price of insulin, which is relatively inexpensive to produce. The inflation-adjusted cost of the medication has increased 24% between 2017 and 2022, and spending on insulin has tripled in the past decade to $22.3 billion in 2022, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Some 8.4 million Americans rely on insulin to survive, and as many as 1 in 4 patients have been unable to afford their medicine, leading them to ration doses – sometimes with fatal ramifications, according to the association.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      It does require time, effort and resources to manufacture, and on top of that there’s a regulatory system for quality checking so that nobody gets poisoned by a faulty batch, which is more time, effort and resources.

      Some cost is reasonable. Price gouging is unreasonable and greedy. Free is also unreasonable and would create a risk of low production quality.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        16·
        2 years ago

        🙄

        The time, effort, and resources could be handled by a public industry that produces a public good. There’s no reason for it to be privatized.

          • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
            03·
            2 years ago

            non corrupt governmental oversight

            I mean, we could just wish for a unicorn pony that shits glitter and barfs rainbows while we’re at it.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            18·
            2 years ago

            Apparently insulin is always free and so are some other stuff.

            Oh so you mean literally what I said in my original comment?

            IMO a great system is a mix of both a strong private sector and a strong public sector with non corrupt governmental oversight.

            IMO a great system would be to round up the executives, board members, district heads, and shareholders into work camps. 😘

            • intensely_human@lemm.ee
              13·
              2 years ago

              Yes we are familiar with your barely-concealed desire to kill people. What we’re trying to discuss is more of a help-poor-people thing, than it is a hurt-rich-people thing.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                08·
                2 years ago

                What? No! They should never be allowed to die. 🤭

                They have accumulated an incredible debt to society that they must pay back, no matter how long it takes! 😉

        • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
          04·
          2 years ago

          could be handled by a public industry that produces a public good

          could be, in a fantasyland where all people do things out of pure altruism and always put the good of others ahead of their own self-interest.

          I used to believe people could be this way too. Then I turned 8.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            56·
            2 years ago

            If public libraries were proposed today you would oppose them as fantasyland nonsense.

            In the real world, public works work.