America’s health care system is fatal for a growing number of people every year as people lose or have insurance they are unable to use. The sole purpose of this reality is to enrich a few.
Sadly, we are doing this to ourselves by choosing to believe manufactured truths about our healthcare system. The billionaires and multimillionaires who control it all are effective in creating ads and narratives that continue to convince too many to vote against their own interest to ensure the rich’s over expanding wealth on the backs of most.
One hopes that more of these stories where both the young and the old are dying or being maimed for lack of care will change things. Medicare for All, in one of many implementations, where we remove the suited thugs from insurance and pharmaceuticals is a good start to bring some humanity to our healthcare system.
A few months ago I wrote the piece “The insulin story, a perfect example of corporations stealing the wealth of most of us.” Please check it out and share as well.
Young man dies after losing his insurance and turning to cheaper form of insulin
Josh Wilkerson died on June 14, 2019, five days after suffering a series of strokes and slipping into a diabetic coma, at a North Virginia dog kennel where he worked as a manager making $16.50 an hour. Wilkerson was 27 years old. He and his fiancee, Rose Walters, were trying to save money to pay for their approaching wedding, and after aging out of eligibility for coverage under his father’s insurance, Wilkerson was having a terrible time trying to afford his insulin costs. According to his mother and his fiancee, Wilkerson had begun taking “human insulin,” a considerably cheaper, “lower-grade medication.”
The cost difference made the drug affordable for Wilkerson—the over-the-counter version of the drug is one-tenth the price of the more effective and unaffordable version. But doctors do not suggest it for all patients as a stopgap because it is less effective, and it is considerably slower at stabilizing one’s blood-sugar levels, taking hours longer to be effective than the prescription version.
Walters told The Washington Post that Wilkerson was working an overnight shift at the kennel to make more money. The two had FaceTimed one another before going to bed, at which point Wilkerson complained of stomach pains. Walters reminded him to take his medication, which he said he would do. Both Walters and Wilkerson have Type 1 diabetes, the genetically determined variant of the disease. When Wilkerson didn’t respond to a call the next morning, Walters ran over and found him unconscious on the floor, telling the paper, “I just remember smacking him on the face, saying, ‘Babe, wake up. You have to wake up.’”
The tragedy of Josh Wilkerson’s death is that it was preventable. If Wilkerson had been able to afford his medicine, he would have been taking those lifesaving drugs. Wilkerson’s situation is not unique in our medicine-for-money country. At least 25% of diabetes patients say that they ration their insulin medications in order to make financial ends meet. This is a dangerous balance that people are forced to strike as the prices of insulin (as well as most drug prices) in our country continue to skyrocket.
https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/1159115800848080896
Source: Young man dies after losing his insurance and turning to cheaper form of insulin