As price of insulin soars, Americans caravan to Canada for lifesaving medicine

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

As price of insulin soars, Americans caravan to Canada for lifesaving medicine

By Emily Rauhala June 16 at 2:52 PM

As their minivan rolled north, they felt their nerves kick in — but they kept on driving.

At the wheel: Lija Greenseid, a rule-abiding Minnesota mom steering her Mazda5 on a cross-border drug run.

Her daughter, who is 13, has Type 1 diabetes and needs insulin. In the United States, it can cost hundreds of dollars per vial. In Canada, you can buy it without a prescription for a tenth of that price.

So, Greenseid led a small caravan last month to the town of Fort Frances, Ontario, where she and five other Americans paid about $1,200 for drugs that would have cost them $12,000 in the United States.

“It felt like we were robbing the pharmacy,” said Quinn Nystrom, a Type 1 diabetic who joined the caravan that day. “It had been years since I had 10 vials in my hands.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-price-of-insulin-soars-americans-caravan-to-canada-for-lifesaving-medicine/2019/06/14/0a272fb6-8217-11e9-9a67-a687ca99fb3d_story.html

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I have a cousin in Minnesota who is considering this.

Her two teenage sons both have diabetes and it is bankrupting them to provide it. They are working people, I would not even consider them middle class these days. They are dairy farmers and are just getting by.

[Voltaire2]

2. But we have to keep a for profit system

in place because <reasons>.

[democratisphere]

4. Profit is one thing.

Colossal price gouging is another, specially by the white coat and white collar criminals.

[Voltaire2]

5. Generally no crimes are involved.

[democratisphere]

6. Murder or manslaughter, take your pick.

When patients no longer have access to life saving drugs because the wall street pharmaceutical companies are charging many, many times more for the same drugs that are available across the border for a small fraction of the cost, that's murder. There are legal crimes and crimes against humanity with same end result, death.

[Voltaire2]

7. Except that our legal system does not

recognize pricing of drugs as a crime. I’m not arguing that it shouldn’t be a crime, I’m just pointing out that it isn’t.

[democratisphere]

8. Presidential criminals can't be indicted while holding office.

Whitecollar, white coat and Presidential criminals are getting away with murder. It is still murder.

[democratisphere]

3. The American Criminal Enterprise Healthcare System strikes again.

When will people in this GD country ever become
outraged enough!