Over the past few years, the pharmaceutical industry has been front and center for its skyrocketing drug prices. Even under the most intense scrutiny, Big Pharma seems to know the problem at hand and are content with the status quo. And with the amount of money padding the walls of their ivory towers, who could blame them for not caring about the hands, or health, of those that feed them.
After all, those hands belong to some of the unhealthiest, and simultaneously poorest, people in the United States. As America slips further and further into its obesity-induced food coma, the cost of the drugs to control some of the obesity-induced diseases only perpetuates the cycle.
With blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes making up 38.3% of all of the prescribed drugs in the US, trying to get control of your health or your wallet seems to have become an either-or kind of situation. For most people, it’s a no-brainer to spend $30 to feed the whole family with grease-filled burgers and fries rather than paying hundreds of dollars to pay for a 30-day supply of drugs.
However, with what many hope will be the start of the snowball rolling downhill, drug maker Eli Lilly announced that they would cap out-of-pocket costs for their insulin drug at $35, and $25 for their non-branded drug, a 70% cut from previous costs.
With over nine million Americans taking insulin, and with many of those people paying well over $1000 for the drug, this announcement is a more than welcome sight for sore eyes, or sore arms, legs, and bellies in this case!
It’s worth noting that in the last 30 years, Eli Lilly has been responsible for raising the cost of their insulin drug, Humalog, by more than 1000 percent! While this move certainly came from mounting pressure at the highest levels of government, this is, without a doubt, a win for Americans who rely on insulin to keep them out of the hospital, and out of the grave.
We can only hope that other companies begin to follow suit and make life more affordable for the people that need the drugs the most.
