The Diabetic Patient

Posted on: October 8, 2020

For diabetic patients, as an example, it is becoming a life or death choice. In an article, written by Amy Martyn, for NBC News, “Insulin prices are soaring, patients are dying,” she writes that the average list price for insulin tripled from 2002 to 2013 and then doubled from 2012 to 2016, forcing some diabetics to spend as much as $1,200 a month. That’s more than most people’s car payment, rent, or mortgage payment.

In another article, written by Shefali Luthra, of Kaiser Health News, “Is Insulin’s High Cost Keeping Diabetes Patients From Taking Their Medicine?”- she writes that According to the American Diabetes Association, about 1.25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes —less common than Type 2 — and cannot live without insulin.

An American Diabetes Association trial that was made public in May of 2018, polled about 530 people online whose demographics corresponded to the national data of people with diabetes. About 27% of respondents suggested the price of insulin had “affected their past year purchase or use of insulin.”

The Georgia SVdP Community Pharmacy focuses on medications to treat conditions such as diabetes, filling prescriptions at no cost to clients so that they may focus their limited resources on other areas of need.