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Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare. But in America you are supposed to take "personal
by HarryHirsch 5y ago
Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare.
But in America you are supposed to take "personal responsibility" for your own health and biohack your way ouf of type 1 diabetes?! Srsly?
This s a political, not a scientific problem. Call your congresscritter.
- adamrezich 5y ago> Call your congresscritter. unfortunately not likely to do anything as long as the big pharma lobby remains as powerful as it is
- badRNG 5y agoWhat else is one to do?
- HarryHirsch 5y agoTake to the streets, like the French do?
- SiempreViernes 5y agoActually, the French mostly stay at home: the last gubernatorial elections had like 34% participation.
- permo-w 5y agoThey mean strikes, and protests
- OriginalNebula 5y agoIn the second round of the 2017 presidential election there was 65.3% turnout. In the 2020 US presidential election there was 66.8% turnout.
- tux3 5y agoThe primary tool we use to exerce Democracy is not so much the vote anymore, it is protests on specific issues. Votes are too diluted, and there is no accountability for campaign promises. Le référendum, c'est Place de la Bastille!
- mgarfias 5y agoI’d vote for swinging politicians from lamp posts, but were not allowed to do that.
- dekhn 5y agoIf your question is truly serious, the answer is: nothing. It's almost certainly impossible to fix the US healthcare system given the enormous number of people who profit so much from its current dysfunction. Unless there is some sort of major disruption that completely changes the landscape (very unlikely), you can expect pharma in the US to be extremely expensive.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThat's bad news, because when the answer is "nothing," people don't do nothing. They instead resort to the language of the unheard.
- dekhn 5y agoit will be interesting to see how health care evolves in the US, to say the least.
- bruiseralmighty 5y agoAbout Insulin? Look for ways to make the patents unenforceable. If diabetics had the ability to make their own safe insulin at home that would be best. Then all they would need is an internet connection and some basic components. The closer we get to that ideal the more empowered they are. This would actually solve a lot of price gouging for drugs. However that's only a stop gap measure. What's happening with gating access to insulin is happening to a thousand other products in a thousand other industries right now. Start looking at alternative governance structures. Lord knows everyones got a blog and a half-assed plan to run things better at this point (since the bar is so low). Just don't poke the bear. As cathartic as hanging 'congresscritters' would be it wont actually solve the problem. Basically act like you don't expect anyone else to fix this problem for you because nobody is going to; especially if you voted for them.
- dv_dt 5y agoThe production cost of insulin is incredibly low. The pricing on it in the United States is systematic criminal manslaughter.
- skohan 5y agoWhat's the actual situation there? I have read that cheap insulin for example is available at WallMart, but for some reason the price of insulin seems to be a huge issue.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 5y agoThe situation is that Type 2 Diabetes has raised the demand for insulin. More demand raises prices. The thing we can't talk about without risking cancellation is that nearly all Type 2 Diabetes is preventable. In other words, the choices of the many have a significant negative impact on those (i.e., Type 1'ers) who don't really have a choice.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoDown voted (faux cancelled) as expected. For stating fact and truth? God bless you.
- mgarfias 5y agoOur food system is sure rigged to make us fat. But then, in my case, what was it that triggered the t2d? Was it the family genetics (both parents are t2d in their old age), the over abundance of sugar in the std American diet, the stress caused by abusive relationships (parents suck, plus ex wife made my life a living hell), or the adrenal tumor? I’ll never know and I’m stuck with it.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoTwo of three you have control over. Some might even agrue epigenetics says three of three. Diet. Exercise. Etc. All known to change T2D.
- birdyrooster 5y agoFound your problem: "African American adults are 60 percent more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes by a physician." Given that the middle class is very white and employed with insurance coverage, it virtually doesn't affect white people. Our politics takes black people's votes for granted and don't do anything for them.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoDiabetes rates for blacks is 11.7% vs. 7.5% for whites. That is a ~60% increase, but it's hardly an issue that only affects black voters.
- pmichaud 5y agoAlso worth noting that it's 11.7% of about 14% vs 7.5% of about 76%, so in absolute terms there are way more white diabetics than black diabetics.
- armatav 5y agoThe insulin price is that high through political/regulatory capture. It costs barely anything to make. Not every problem has it’s root in division.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYou're not wrong but the fact that the problem is allowed to persist certainly something to do with "people with enough spare f*ks to give to be politically active" being mostly unaffected by the problem. IMO it's more helpful to look at this through an economic lenses than a race one. T2 diabetes is very much a poor person's disease.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>Our politics takes black people's votes for granted and don't do anything for them. It's worse than that. If they sufficiently pandered to them to the point of actually solving their problems then they wouldn't be able to take those votes for granted, so they'll never solve their problems.
- api 5y agoThe US health care system combines everything bad about government-run health care (slow progress due to heavy regulation, layers of bureaucracy, government-enforced drug monopolies) with everything bad about free-enterprise health care (inequality, market price fixing, uneven quality, lots of quackery at the edges of regulation). We need to pick something. If we're going the free enterprise way we need competition, price transparency, quality and outcome transparency, more open markets, and much lower taxes. If we're going the state-run or state-insured way then we need to whole-ass it and vertically integrate and drop the state-backed private insurance hybrid nightmare. The US does this pessimum thing all over the place. We are taxed almost like a more "socialist" country (unless you are rich enough to offshore and play tax loophole games) but do not get the benefits of one. Either cut my taxes down to Costa Rica levels or give me benefits at least as good as Canada please.
- chiefalchemist 5y agoWhat we need is a focus on prevention. A significant amount of the system is devoted to preventable conditions. Lower the demand and prices will naturally come down across the board as resouces get redistributed, etc. But as it is, insulin is high demand and increasing. Prices simply don't fall when demand increases.
- dv_dt 5y agoEvery time I’ve dug into it, modern nations which enjoy a much lower cost per capita coverage (which the US is a major outlier) basically have a government mechanism to set prices for drugs and health services. There are no free market health systems in leading economic nations (unless maybe you take a very small niche corner of the systems)
- adventured 5y ago> There are no free market health systems in leading economic nations That also does not exist in the US and hasn't in more than half a century. The US could hardly be any further away from a free market in healthcare. It's hyper regulated, and hyper dominated by government programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and dozens of other programs and agencies). The US healthcare system is controlled top to bottom by rigid, strict government regulations and oversight. It's the way it is precisely because there is no free market at all. The corporatist interests like it just the way it is, and work with the politicians to constantly maintain that highly regulated environment: it's regulated in their favor, exclusionary of nearly all potential competition. And it's insanely expensive to try to start anything in healthcare, which favors the incumbent further. Try starting a hospital or opening a clinic. Try becoming a doctor. Try getting a drug to market. Try getting a medtech device to market. Hyper regulation every direction you look. Free market? Ha.
- a3n 5y ago> Call your congresscritter. Sorry, but regular people don't make "campaign contributions" of any noticable size, so all we get back is a form letter acknowledgement based on whatever box you checked for subject. Big Pharma, Big X and Big Y, on the other hand, "donate" enough "campaign contributions" that the campaigner can all but ensure (re) election based on recent name recognition to get the nomination, then counting on "their" voters being unable to vote for the opposite party even with the discovery of a live boy or a dead girl. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=live+boy+or+dead+girl&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=live+boy+or+dead+girl&t=fpas&ia=we...
- nceqs3 5y agoFactually incorrect comment. Corporations cannot make campaign contributions.
- arcticbull 5y agoLuckily people can, and corporations are people. That is to say, corporations can donate to PACs and PACs can donate to candidates.
- nceqs3 5y agonot true. PACs cannot donate more than a pretty low limit to candidates.
- mikepurvis 5y agoThe whole point of a PAC is that they don't donate to the campaigns directly, but rather exercise their free speech to supply the public with "information" about the candidates.
- a3n 5y agoMoney is, after all, "speech." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC Walk softly and carry a big purse.
- moomin 5y agoI mean, it wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to solve America’s political problems with tech.
- anchpop 5y agoSolving america’s problems with tech has a pretty good success rate. We tried addressing covid with social solutions (social distancing, self-quarantine, etc) and it was generally a complete failure in comparison to the technological solution (mrna vaccinations)
- moomin 5y agoCongratulations on ignoring the qualifying adjective so that you can look like you’ve constructed a counter-example without actually managing it.
- coliveira 5y agoCongress has been bought by big pharma. There is nothing the American people can do at this point other than revolting on the streets.
- pm90 5y agoI mean, that’s not nothing. Maybe not revolt, but organize, pressure sitting politicians and encourage better candidates to run. Americans vilify their politicians and then expect that somehow really “good” people will get into that profession. I don’t get it…
- coliveira 5y agoWhat I mean is that traditional avenues for change have been closed by the pharma industry lobby. It is not very different from the situation with the oil industry. The traditional political system has been corrupted by these industry forces, which support both parties.
- bko 5y agoPrice controls don't work. This is a solved problem and understood by nearly all economists. They lead to over/under production, huge waste, less efficiency and regulatory capture. The question is why no one is calling for price controls for other products that are produced in a relatively free market. Then ask yourself whats different about the market for insulin that prevents price competition. Using "fixed" prices to control costs is like using "fixed" thermostat readings to control global warming.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThe way price controls are achieved for medicine in the first world is through negotiation between the state public Healthcare system and pharma companies. This actually, provably works, and has worked for decades, and is much more efficient than in the US in fact - both in terms of healthcare outcomes, and Healthcare costs.
- bko 5y agoI guess you have a lot more faith in "state public Healthcare system". Many comments were about how corrupt the politicians that led to this system were, so I imagine they would be equally as corrupt when they're "setting prices". The alternative would be to allow people to break the third party payer system and allow people to buy and import drugs from whomever they want. You can do this now on the grey market, but it would be great if it were legalized. Then you can probably get it for the same price as any other country, probably even lower. If you want, you can have the state cut every insulin user a check for $10 a year or whatever it would cost in a free market