Nicole Smith-Holt’s son, Alec, died in 2017 from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that occurs when the body doesn’t have enough insulin.
Alec had Type 1 diabetes. The 26-year-old had been recently removed from his parents' health insurance plan and was about $300 short of the $1,300 he needed to pay for his insulin medication, his mother said.
In a bid to wait until his next payday to purchase the medication, he rationed the insulin he had left.
“Unfortunately, his body was found three days prior to payday,” said Smith-Holt, of Richfield, Minnesota.
In the five years since Alec’s death, not much has changed: The high cost of insulin remains a significant barrier to care for many Americans.
A study published this month in the journal Health Affairs found that 14% of people who use insulin in the United States face what is described as a “catastrophic” level of spending on the medication, meaning that after paying for other essentials, such as food and housing, they spend at least 40% of their remaining income on insulin.
The study’s estimate, which covered 2017 and 2018, didn’t include other costs related to diabetes care, such as glucose monitors, insulin pumps or other medications.
Though drugmakers often offer programs that can lower the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for both insured and uninsured patients, the financial burden can still be devastating for some.People without insurance can shell out hundreds of dollars a month or more for the medication, which usually requires multiple vials per month, said Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief scientist for the American Diabetes Association, an advocacy group for patients with diabetes.
To save money, some patients will ration or skip doses of their medication, said Krutika Amin, associate director of the Affordable Care Act program at the nonprofit KFF, also known as the Kaiser Family Foundation. But this approach eventually leads to higher costs, she said, when they are hospitalized or sent to the emergency room.
Why insulin remains unaffordable
But why does insulin — a medication that’s been around for more than 100 years — remain unaffordable for many people in the U.S.?
The high cost can be attributed in part to “evergreening,” a process in which drug companies make incremental improvements to their products that can extend the life of their patents, said Dr. Kevin Riggs, a physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine. He co-wrote a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2015 that described the century-long history of the drug
The improvements may include tinkering with a molecule or changing the delivery system, such as using insulin pens instead of vials.
Extending patents can discourage generic drugs from being developed, Riggs said, allowing drugmakers with exclusive rights to their insulin to charge whatever the market will bear. And as supply chains have become more complicated over the years, costs have ballooned.