At the northern border of the United States, a movement is growing in response to the lack of affordable insulin in the U.S.
As insulin costs continue to rise, many Americans have found themselves resorting to alternative methods to secure a supply of the drug. According to the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute, insulin prices doubled between 2012 and 2017. The average annual cost of insulin for a person with Type 1 diabetes was $5,705 in 2016.
In Canada, the story is different. The same amount of insulin that would cost $320 in the United States can be found under a different name selling for $30 a vial, according to Quinn Nystrom, a member of the Community Leadership Board for the Minnesota chapter of the American Diabetic Association. While crossing into Canada for cheaper medicine is an appealing option, those who are unable to do so are forced to take more drastic actions. Some have sold their valuables or taken to the internet to crowdsource donations
“Anytime you see a GoFundMe for health care, it is an indication that something is broken in the system,” said Art Caplan, the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Chair, and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “All GoFundMe means is, ‘I’m begging.’”
At the root of the problem is that three companies in the world control 90 percent of the world’s insulin supply, and there is no generic brand of insulin. The reason, however, the same drug is so much cheaper in Canada than the U.S. comes down to governmental policy. Unlike in the U.S., the Canadian government heavily regulates the cost of medications, and negotiates with drug manufacturers to keep costs low. Seeing no sign of drug costs decreasing, some states, like Maine, have called for federal permission to import cheaper drugs from Canadian pharmacies. Current Food and Drug Administration policy is opposed to that.
“To me, if it comes from a Canadian pharmacy, it’s the same thing you’d get if you were up there. One solution to high drug prices is to open the door more to bringing in stuff from legitimate pharmacies from places where it’s much, much cheaper,” Caplan said. “Why don’t we have that?”
