[HN Gopher] The cost of a standard unit of insulin
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The cost of a standard unit of insulin
Author : srameshc
Score : 17 points
Date : 2021-03-22 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| kingsloi wrote:
| I posted something along the same lines last week about my own
| struggles with the cost of healthcare in the US.
|
| https://kingsley.sh/posts/2021/staggering-cost-of-surviving-...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26497816
|
| In my lil girl's 147 ICU stay, $333,000+ of the $2.5m bill was IV
| medication. I wish they broke it down by medications because I
| would be really interested in seeing what makes up the $333k.
| She's been both hyperglycaemic and hyperinsulinemic, really I'm
| just interested in what they charged for essentially sugar water.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Something is very off here. A standard vial of insulin has 10 ml
| of insulin concentrated so there are 100 standard units per ml.
|
| 1000 units per vial. Even in America where our prices are
| bananas, the cash price of a vial of insulin is not 100k.
|
| I believe the overall pricing trend, though. Maybe this is the
| cost per vial? It isn't even the cost per cc!
| disabled wrote:
| Yeah instead of "unit of insulin" he meant "vial of insulin".
|
| A standard vial of insulin is 10 mL. Generally speaking, the
| most common concentration of insulin is 100 units per
| milliliter. So, typically, a standard vial of insulin contains
| 1,000 units of insulin.
| disabled wrote:
| Yeah, the cost of insulin is appalling.
|
| In the US, outcomes for people with type 1 diabetes (autoimmune
| and insulin-dependent) really have not improved substantially
| against other countries. In many ways, we have regressed. I
| personally have type 1 diabetes and care is so much different
| abroad.
|
| This is just one symptom of our malady within the US healthcare
| system: it is about profit and not about improving the health,
| livelihood, and longevity of the general population.
|
| I naturalized as a citizen with universal healthcare over stuff
| like insulin prices, although this was not the primary reason. I
| studied healthcare systems for hundreds of hours to figure out
| where I would need to establish myself. If anyone wants help or
| advice regarding healthcare systems and/or citizenship matters, I
| am here to help. Check my email on my profile.
| lukewrites wrote:
| > If anyone wants help or advice regarding healthcare systems
| and/or citizenship matters, I am here to help. Check my email
| on my profile.
|
| I'll be emailing you. My wife and I are starting to work on a
| shortlist of countries to consider as immigration targets. I'm
| not interested in my children growing up in a "free market"
| healthcare system.
| inetsee wrote:
| The cost of insulin is not the only expense diabetics face. I
| have a Freestyle Libre Continuous Glucose monitor. Instead of
| finger sticks to put a drop of blood into a monitor, I have a
| sensor attached to my arm, and a reader that can read glucose
| levels by swiping the reader over the sensor as often as I
| want. When I was doing finger sticks, I was testing glucose
| approximately four times a day. Now that I have the CGM I test
| approximately 20 time a day. The improvement in my glucose
| control is significant.
|
| I have Medicare and supplemental insurance, so my costs are all
| covered. If I didn't have insurance the uninsured cost of
| sensors used to be $350 every four weeks. Late last year the
| uninsured cost went up to $1074 every four weeks. This is just
| my most visible awareness of how badly healthcare in the United
| States is broken.
| dbbljack wrote:
| flash glucose monitor...
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(page generated 2021-03-22 23:05 UTC)