Diabetes is Expensive

E-NICE · #1 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:16 AM

The thing that really gets me is not the injections, constant doctor visits, feeling terrible regularly or even the possible complications. No all of that can be dealt with, it's the fact that diabetes is a money eating monster! Sorry just had to vent.

JediSkipdogg · #2 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:20 AM

It's not just diabetes, it's the entire drug industry. Why does Tube A cost $90 a tube but yet the same thing Tube B which is a generic of A cost $10 a tube? It's because there's little control and the drug companies can charge what they want since they know you need their products.

Take insulin for example....in the past 10 years insulin has more than trippled in price. Why? There's no reason for it. It's not like demand outweighs supply.

Why does that BG strip costs 75 cents each? There's no more than 2 cents put into it.

The answer is all because they can, and that's why insurance rates are through the roof and alot can't afford it. Yet the government wants to complain and "force" (Massachusettes) health insurance on everyone yet they have done nothing to the drug companies for price gouging, which is EXACTLY what they are doing and getting away with it.

jeggeman31 · #3 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-NICE

it's the fact that diabetes is a money eating monster!

:dito:

Thus the reason I think we will never see a cure.

But yes you are correct. I have wonderful health insurance, and only pay $500 a year out of pocket for all of my diabetes related items/Dr Appt. I don't know how people with no insurance or who are under insured do it. My hat is off to those people.

lgvincent · #4 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:51 AM

That's true. When I developed diabetes in 1968, insulin was 99 cents per vial. When in college in the late 70's, I think I was paying around $4.49 per vial. Now, I'm looking at about $65 for a vial for Humalog and in 2002, I think I was paying about $18 for it. It jumped to $24 and has been increasing rapidly ever since.

I came across something within the last year or two that said it cost about 6 cents to make a glucose strip. Maybe they've moved production to China where they can get a better price on the cost of manufacture. I sure will be glad when the Chinese government buys modern equipment for their huge army with all the money U. S. corporations are giving them and then put all those CEO's into the reeducation camps. They sure need to be taught a few things.

E-NICE · #5 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 07:59 AM

Then they have the nerve to say the high prices support research. If we all support research with these high prices diabetes, cancer and a whole lot of other deseases should be history.

JediSkipdogg · #6 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-NICE

Then they have the nerve to say the high prices support research. If we all support research with these high prices diabetes, cancer and a whole lot of other deseases should be history.

But you are playing with the human body. The most complicated and changing item in the universe. You come up wiht a solution, guess what, next year it will mutate. Why do you think there's no 1 time cure for the common flu? It's because each year it changes so. That's the main problem with the body.

lgvincent · #7 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-NICE

Then they have the nerve to say the high prices support research. If we all support research with these high prices diabetes, cancer and a whole lot of other deseases should be history.

That's true. I thought a lot of this "research" was paid for by the government, too. I've seen stories of how federal dollars are used to develop a drug which some pharmaceutical company then markets and charges tons of money for to pay for all the "development costs" involved, costs which it appears were already paid in a large part by the taxpayers who now can't afford the drug.

What really gets me with research is, where's the motivation to find a solution to the problem? If you find a cure for a disease, you're out of a job, so what do you want to do, conduct research and have a safe job or find a solution and lose it? I think there is very little incentive to find cures for disease the way things are set up right now because they are paid to conduct research, not find cures. If you give the CEO's of all these big corporations cancer or any other disease, I'll bet we'll have a cure for it real fast.

Stuboy · #8 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 08:21 AM

Im glad i live in the UK, i'd love to move to Canada one day, but i dont think we'd be able to afford to.. purely for the cost of my diabetes!

DeusXM · #9 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuboy

Im glad i live in the UK, i'd love to move to Canada one day, but i dont think we'd be able to afford to.. purely for the cost of my diabetes!

Canada runs a system not too dissimilar from the NHS; you'll be fine.

JasonJayhawk · #10 (**permalink**) 10-12-2006, 09:18 AM

I read somewhere that the average cost (to patient and insurance company) for having Type 1 is $10,000 USD per year in 2005.

All my retirement savings are poured into healthcare. Five years ago, when I said that, I thought it would mean I'd be investing in healthcare. Instead, it's going to the CEO's, whose jobs are easy considering that we are obligated to use their services or else we don't live long, healthy lives.

And yet the CEO's pat themselves on the back because they think they're changing the world as if they run a "charity."

Heck, the company I worked with before had a huge conference with 6,000 of its employees and brought in a little 6 year-old diabetic girl and her mother to speak about the "great things" the company has done to improve their life by developing an on-line web-based glucose management system. They made it sound like they were the first to develop such a system, but since I was (attempting) to work on my thesis at the time, which deals with the same idea, I knew there were well over 20 other more advanced systems available.

They received a standing ovation for their "moving story." It left the company feeling "great" that they were investing $20 million/year into this on-line system (meanwhile, I'm thinking that I single-handedly developed something that did more than what they had at the time, and for a lot less money).

Just one week later, the new insurance benefits plan came out, stating that all prescription items, including diabetes test supplies, would be paid for at 50% retail (removing all co-pays) and on top of that, the health plan price also went up.

This was essentially a $5,000 pay-cut to me out of an already peanuts-paying software engineering job (80 hours a week).

Good riddance to their new plan.

Anyone looking for a software engineer? *sigh*