African Americans Need Affordable Insulin
Rising costs have made access to affordable insulin far more difficult for people with diabetes.
According to the Minority Health Office of the US Department of Health and Human Services, 13% of non-Hispanic Black men and women suffer from diabetes, compared to 8% of non-Hispanic White Americans.
Medicare enrollees who require insulin will be overjoyed that their cost will be capped at $35 per month, no exceptions.
All but seven Republicans voted against the provision that would have required ALL insurers to cap the cost of insulin through a rebate program.
The patent for manufactured insulin, developed more than a century ago, was awarded on January 23, 1923 to University of Toronto Professor J.R.R. Banting, medical student Charles Best, and chemist James Collip. They sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1 each, with Banting saying, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”
However, insulin soon became a profit center for pharmaceutical corporations that were given the right to mass produce it, and today Americans pay more than 10 times what anyone in Europe pays for insulin. The Inflation Reduction Act caps the cost for people covered by Medicare at $35 per month, but those with private or Obamacare insurance coverage will still have to overpay for this life-saving medication.
