Member-only story
What happens to the price of insulin without Build Back Better?
Short answer, nothing.
I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was 8 years old. Before that, I had never heard of the pancreas and its ability to produce insulin. All I knew is that prior to my diagnosis I was a normal kid that could seemingly eat whatever they wanted. Little did I know that insulin was going to be the medication I needed to take for the rest of my life to live a normal life again.
At first, insulin seemed like any other medication you needed to pick up at the pharmacy. I had to pick it up monthly and the cost was always zero. A couple of years into my diagnosis and the pharmacy recommended I switch to a 3-month supply to keep the medication free. We obliged thinking nothing of it. Insulin had been “free” for years now and I naively believed it was going to stay that way.
By the time I became a teenager, my family started to notice that my insulin was no longer free at the pharmacy. The price first rose to $25 for a 3-month supply and then quickly changed to $25 for a 1-month supply of this necessary medication. My family could afford the $25 price increase, but a lifesaving medication going from free to $25 per month is a hard pill to swallow. After all, it wasn’t just my insulin that was no longer free. The test strips for my glucometer, glucagon…
