So you offer the newer, better treatments for free, right? Right???
Except if diabetics had cheap safe access to insulin none of them would die………..
The point it seems like they are trying to make (and I have only read up till the paywall) is that there are multiple forms of insulin, and newer versions basically work better. Many people are getting the newer, better drugs, but having to ration them because of how expensive they are. If plain, old insulin becomes cheap enough such that people switch to it (critically, without some extra effort by our healthcare system), a percentage of people will end up dying. Managing diabetes is all about keeping blood glucose stable, and that is asier to do with the modern stuff.
They retitled the article to "Making Insulin Cheaper Isn’t Enough", which i think is a much better headline.
And again, I could only read up till the paywall, so i could be giving them too much credit.
The fact they changed the headline is itself praiseworthy, but the fact it was click bait and sensationalist to begin counters it.
The point about making the older stuff cheaper is something that isn't mentioned as much as it should be in these debates.
Ultimately even if the older stuff is worse and requires more attention and monitoring (less convenient), it is still better than nothing.
“Making Insulin Cheaper Isn’t Enough” sounds like a good headline on its own, but with the context of the original headline and tagline, it sure sounds like the rest of the article is going to be making point for not making insulin cheaper at all.
Maybe there is a real call to action buried past the paywall, but I don't see it, and therefore I can only assume that what I can see without paying is the message they want to push.
I didn't have a paywall for some reason, so here's the gist of it:
Insulin is only the first choice for type 1 diabetes. For type 2, there are alternatives (not just variants of insulin, but actually different drugs) with fewer side effects, and which are more effective against the serious dangers like heart attacks. But when insulin gets much cheaper, those patients (i.e. the majority of diabetes patients) could end up using insulin and run a higher risk of those more deadly symptoms. Towards the end, the article even says: "In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications."
The old forms of insulin (R, NPH) are already cheap and available at Walmart without a prescription. They are only $25 a vial, but suck to use though. Pretty sure they’re referring to the metabolic drugs given to people with type 2.
Maybe that would motivate pharmaceutical companies to work on treatments that actually cure diabetes?
Seems like are breakthrough treatments we are getting over recent years is just to manage the sickness.
No. Idiot. Only the capitalist class can construct hypothetical scenarios.
Hmm, who is this Rose fellow?
Michael Rose is a senior resident in internal medicine and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The only person The Atlantic could find to peddle this shit isn’t even allowed to practice medicine without supervision? lmao
credit to michael rose, they want all diabetes medications to be cheaper or free.
That’s fair! It’s entirely possible they got rolled by The Atlantic and didn’t know what the editors were going to do to the piece. But like, at the same time maybe question why a national publication would need someone who isn’t able to practice on their own to do an opinion piece about something highly politicized… (them before they agreed to write the piece I mean, if that wasn’t clear)
The title of the article is clickbait/ragebait. The actual article content is a little different. The gist of it is more so this:
In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications.
Headline writters are often/usually different people than the person who wrote the article leading to infuriating things like this
Whatever the reason for the amateur bullshit, it's amateur bullshit on the part of the atlantic, which is the actual headline here.
This was not written by some rich asshole. This was written by someone on the payroll of some rich asshole.
Yes! Without shared ownership over the companies we work at, we have no ownership over how our labor is used. This is why a worker owned economy is such a critical part of Marxism and why Social democracy's attempt to achieve socialist goals through higher taxes and labor rights isn't enough (a golden cage is still a cage.) The heart of socialism is giving people a shared ownership over their labor which means they get a voice and vote on how their labor will be used
I'd put money on the idea that this guy is a rich asshole and actively causing harm in the field that is his profession. https://www.theatlantic.com/author/michael-rose/
They've also already changed the headline, presumably because that didn't go so well. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/09/diabetes-medication-insulin-cost/671333/
What’s worse - taking diabetes medication that’s somewhat outdated, or taking no diabetes medication at all?
I’m not a doctor, but I bet I know the answer.
YoU jUsT hAvE To WaTcH yOuR DiEt
-them probably
yOu juSt hAve To cuT swEetS, maYBe tRY tHe CArniVorE DieT
- them actually
Other times they'll just advise you to use honey, because they think that's not sugar.
If diabetics get insulin for free they'd become dependent and require it for the rest of their lives. It's safer to just let them die or leave them homeless because they have to spend all their money on it.
/s
Have you read the article? It's about how type 2 patients, for whom insulin isn't the best option and who make up the majority of diabetes patients could end up having to use insulin because it's cheaper.
"In place of capping the out-of-pocket cost of just insulin, lawmakers should cap the out-of-pocket cost of all diabetes medications."
for whom diabetes isn't the best option and who make up the ...
I guess you meant to say "insulin is not the best option"? Because diabetes seems like a shit option all around.
Shhh, now come and sweep yourself under that nice little carpet.
A lot of type two patients need to manage their diets better. You wouldn't believe the number of people who just keep eating like shit.
Sounds like a shit title and introduction then.
There's plenty of countries with cheap insulin, and people there are fine because other treatments for diabetes are cheaper too.
Cheaper medicine?
But at what cost???
Bullshit take. Some people ONLY respond to insulin. Fuck whoever wrote this.
I apologize if this sounds pedantic, but what if the writer was forced to write it to keep his job along with his family's access to food, shelter, and healthcare? So rather than punch down, I say punch up. I say fuck the owners who ultimately signed off on the article and potentially demanded it in the first place. (The Atlantic is owned by Emerson Collective which is owned by billionaire Laurene Jobs. )
what if the writer was forced to write it to keep his job along with his family’s access to food, shelter, and healthcare?
You cant compare existential harm with a direct and tangible one. If the author is in dire straits and writing under duress, let him voice that in his own defense when he is called to account. But preemptively forgiving bad behavior on a remote "maybe" is a recipe for the end of civilization.
The author is a senior resident at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Writing isn't even his profession. He's a doctor.
Why not both?
Let's hold them all to account. Why should we give someone a pass just because they're not part of the c-suite?
This is horrfying. Shame on the atlantic for publishing that headline.
This only makes sense if the new treatments are cheaper or free than insulin. Which I'd bet a body part they aren't.
Ozempic is expensive af. Even more so than insulin.
Michael Rose
Pardon me, but, Mr Rose, can you please tell me.... What fucking better treatments?
My brother is T1D and he's been like that since his teens. Literally the only way for him to continue to live, at all, is to take insulin.
It's times like this that make me thankful I don't live in the USA.
But seriously, if anyone knows of a "better" treatment for type 1 diabetes, I'm all ears. I've been looking for something for my brother for years, and I've come up with jack shit.
Basically they've come up with insulin analogs that are faster acting, ones that are longer lasting, and even ones that "lock" themselves so they can't be absorbed without a high enough presence of glucose
Here's a paper comparing a bunch of them. I'm no expert and it's a deep rabbit hole, but there are a bunch of options, each with their own trade-offs
The most significant insulin development in recent years is glucose reactive insulin.
I would argue that any development short of GRI is not significantly different than any other insulin treatment. You have to take insulin and either regulate how much insulin you take for how much sugar you consume, or regulate how much sugar you consume too match how much insulin you're taking.
The intervals/amounts differ, even methods of administration differ, but they are not drastically different.
GRIs actually regulate blood glucose "automatically" like a pancreas would. Which makes treating diabetes with a GRI, not dissimilar to treating any other condition that requires a single dose of medication every day. You take the medicine and go about your business, not giving your condition a second thought in your day to day activities. That's huge.
This is all well and good, however, GRIs are little more than a lab experiment at the moment. Human trials are set up begin in 2025 sometime.
So my point stands, make insulin cheap, let people live for a few more years until they can see the release of GRIs; where there is a real, tangible change in how they manage their condition.
Everything else, is just variations on the same, bad, theme.
My brother has used so many different brands and types of insulin, from long-acting to short, in vials, pen-like dispensers, and even a couple pumps.... They're all varying levels of bad. The least bad has been the pumps, but the pump isn't dependent on what brand or type of insulin you use.... It's a tool to make it easier to manage the amount of insulin being recieved at any given time. Everything else is little more than a difference in labeling.
