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United States, insulin is very expensive—that cost was likely a large proportion of the $176 billion in medical expenditures incurred by diabetes patients in 20

United States, insulin is very expensive—that cost was likely a large proportion of the $176 billion in medical expenditures incurred by diabetes patients in 2012 alone. Well, the report itself says: prescription medications to treat complications of diabetes (18%) So this is up to $31.68 billion in 2012. I will assume for simplification that all of it goes for insulin. There are about 20 million patients in US (according to http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/). So this puts us into $100-150 in a month range for the insulin.

cperciva 11y ago
I'm not sure which report you're looking at, but "prescription medications to treat complications of diabetes" means things like painkillers for neuropathy, antibiotics for infections, et cetera. Insulin falls under "antidiabetic agents", which treat diabetes itself, not the complications. But most of the 20 million diabetics in the US are type 2 and do not require insulin; it's only Type 1s and the most severe cases Type 2s who take insulin.
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  The CDC keeps pretty good stats, as of 2011, there were about 6 million diabetics taking insulin; http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/meduse/fig1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/meduse/fig1.htm
RHSeeger 11y ago
Just throwing in my experience/numbers, for those interested. I'm a type 1 diabetic (for ~30 years) and take Apidra (short acting) and Lantus (long acting) daily. I use about 5 vials of each per 3 months. I "think" the cost of each vial, if I was paying sticker price, would be about $250.00. So... 2 * 5 * 250 / 3 = $833 / month As it turns out, there's several mitigating factors: 1. I have insurance, so I pay much less than that 2. For those without insurance, the insulin creator has programs to help such people pay for the insurance (discounts for some, max out-of-pocket for others)

cperciva 11y ago

I'm not sure which report you're looking at, but "prescription medications to treat complications of diabetes" means things like painkillers for neuropathy, antibiotics for infections, et cetera. Insulin falls under "antidiabetic agents", which treat diabetes itself, not the complications. But most of the 20 million diabetics in the US are type 2 and do not require insulin; it's only Type 1s and the most severe cases Type 2s who take insulin.

mikeyouse 11y ago
The CDC keeps pretty good stats, as of 2011, there were about 6 million diabetics taking insulin; http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/meduse/fig1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/meduse/fig1.htm

RHSeeger 11y ago

Just throwing in my experience/numbers, for those interested. I'm a type 1 diabetic (for ~30 years) and take Apidra (short acting) and Lantus (long acting) daily. I use about 5 vials of each per 3 months. I "think" the cost of each vial, if I was paying sticker price, would be about $250.00. So... 2 * 5 * 250 / 3 = $833 / month As it turns out, there's several mitigating factors: 1. I have insurance, so I pay much less than that 2. For those without insurance, the insulin creator has programs to help such people pay for the insurance (discounts for some, max out-of-pocket for others)