A recent article on Medscape Diabetes & Endocrinology delved into the difficult financial decisions that many people with diabetes need to make. With rising costs of syringes, test strips, and, above all, insulin, some have begun rationing supplies. Others resort to using insulins intended for animals. Some purchase through an informal black market when lack of coverage makes prescriptions prohibitively expensive. The article spurred discussion among Medscape readers about the problem and potential solutions.
Many blamed pharmaceutical and insurance companies for putting prices out of reach. One physician was outraged:
This is unbelievable. That American healthcare should be so flawed, so impotent, and so head-in-the-sand that access to insulin for diabetics, a fundamental human right, should be mired in so many difficulties.
Another physician cited the extreme behavior that this money-crunch could engender:
Had a patient who sold his syringes to junkies to meet his needs on the streets as a homeless person. He'd come in...about once a month with plenty of insulin but no way to administer it. Now he is probably also using that money to pay for his insulin. That is, if he is still alive.
A colleague saw this as part of a broader problem requiring
