The price of insulin

Last year the state health insurance plan my wife and I are on decided they would no longer provide coverage for the Levemir Insulin Flex Pen I have been using daily for the last several years. Just like that, out of the blue, they drop coverage. No explanation, nothing. So sorry, but you have to pay full price for this if you want to continue to use it.

In the later part of 2021 I walked away from a high paying job and a fantastic health insurance plan. I decided that I did not want to have a stroke, heart attack or wind up in prison with a boy friend. The best alternative was to walk away. When I did that my health insurance went up in smoke. POOF. No more health insurance. No more coverage for medicines that I was dependent upon to keep me alive.

The cost for insulin at that time was around 500 per month. I had a friend that helped me by donating 250.00 for half a month and I paid the rest out of pocket. Then I had the good fortune to petition the drug company that makes the insulin to give me a one year supply for free. I am not sure what would have happened if that had not happened. Oh yeah, I know what would have happened. My blood sugar would have climbed up into the 350 to 400 range and eventually chronic kidney disease would have kicked in and I would have wound up on dialysis 3 times per week.

I provided my doctors office with a copy of that letter several months ago in preparation for this. This last week I learned that my A1c is down to 7.4 which is great considering how high it was two years ago. Progress not…