Why does Insulin cost 10X more in the US than in Canada? TYT

[sagesnow]

Pharmaceutical Kleptocrats, Perhaps?

[customerserviceguy]

1. In Canada

insulin is not a prescription drug. Imagine if it were as easy to get as aspirin at a supermarket.

[sagesnow]

2. Amazing

Did not know that. What a concept.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Yes

I take esomeprazole magnesium on the advice of my internist. Back when that was prescription Nexium, it was very expensive, and I substituted Protonix that I could get from a Canadian pharmacy for about a buck a pill. Then, Nexium went OTC, and I could pay about 75 cents a pill, without having to wait three weeks or so for a new supply, and my doctor approved the switch.

Now, there is "generic" esomeprazole magnesium that is sold under store brands, such as CVS, or lesser known brands that supermarkets sell. Just last week, I was able to pay a bit more than $15 for a package of 42, using a sale and a coupon at CVS, that's only about 36 cents per pill.

Imagine if that happened with insulin, a product that was discovered to be effective for diabetes nearly a hundred years ago.

[Jim__]

3. Price fixing?

From HealthLine

...

However, insulin may be something of a cash crop for drug companies, with a history of price fixing from providers going back to at least 1941.

And more recently, a lawsuit filed by 44 states this month accuses leading drug manufacturers of engaging in a price-fixing scheme for generic drugs to increase their prices by more than 1,000 percent, the New York Times reported.

...

[mitch96]

8. "Price fixing?"

Like when the price for the nut allergy medication in the Epipen went up 700% in a few years. They got away with it because they can.. No regulation until it came out in the open and people started bitching and making the pharma companies look bad.. It changed..
m

[Saviolo]

4. The podcast Behind The Bastards has an episode about this.

The podcast is "Everything you don't know about the worst people in all of history" and the host (Robert Evans) has done an episode on the bastardful history of insulin:

https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/the-bastards-that-kill-diabetics-for-a-profit.htm

[handmade34]

6. because they can...

[appalachiablue]

7. Greedheads

[amcgrath]

9. Some facts

Insulin was "discovered" in 1921, by Canadian Doctor Frederick Banting.

There was no Government healthcare at the time, medicine was private.

Even as a private doctor, Banting said that it would unethical for him to profit from such a discovery.

As a way of getting the insulin to patients, Banting gave his discovery to a university teaching hospital in Toronto. To make the transfer official, Bantings assistants took a dollar.

US pharmaceutical companies did not have to do any R&D. Nor did they own a patent, and if they had, it would have expired before the second world war. - 20 years is the usual patent expiration on medicines

It should also be pointed out that at various times the US government has made official statements suggesting that buying your prescriptions from Canada or Mexico can be dangerous - a government lie to protect the pharmaceutical companies.

Canada is a fair bit bigger than the US and has about a tenth of the population. As a result of economies of scale and less distribution costs, most things in the US are slightly cheaper. There is no reason that that should not apply to medicines too