Skyrocketing U.S. insulin prices force diabetics into the long drive up north
Drugs found in Canada for one tenth the cost
As their minivan rolled north, they felt their nerves kick in – but they kept on driving.
At the wheel: Lija Greenseid, a rule-abiding Minnesota mom steering her Mazda5 on a cross-border drug run.
Her daughter, who is 13, has Type 1 diabetes and needs insulin. In the United States, it can cost hundreds of dollars per vial. In Canada, you can buy it without a prescription for a tenth of that price.
So, Greenseid led a small caravan last month to the town of Fort Frances, Ontario, where she and five other Americans paid about $1,200 for drugs that would have cost them $12,000 in the United States.
“It felt like we were robbing the pharmacy,” said Quinn Nystrom, a Type 1 diabetic who joined the caravan that day. “It had been years since I had 10 vials in my hands.”
They’re planning another run to Canada this month to stock up on insulin – and to call attention to their cause. This time, they’ll be taking the scenic route, driving from Minnesota through Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan en route to London, Ontario, where insulin was discovered nearly a century ago.
Like millions of Americans, Greenseid and Nystrom are stressed and outraged by the rising costs of prescription drugs in the United States – a problem Republicans and Democrats alike have promised to fix.
Insulin is a big part of the challenge. More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. About 7.5 million, including 1.5 million with Type 1 diabetes, rely on insulin.
Between 2012 and 2016, the cost of insulin for treating Type 1 diabetes nearly doubled, according to the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute.
Some pharmaceutical companies, under pressure from U.S. lawmakers, have tried to reduce the cost for some patients. But many who rely on insulin still struggle. Large numbers resort to rationing – a dangerous and sometimes deadly practice.
Some diabetics and their families are taking matters into their own hands. They meet in coffee shops and strip mall parking lots to exchange emergency supplies. An unknown number travel outside the country to buy the lifesaving drug for less.
None of this is recommended by U.S. officials, and some of it might be illegal, under Food and Drug Administration guidelines. But the organizers of the caravan – their word, a nod to the migrants traveling in groups through Mexico to the U.S. border – are speaking out about their trip because they want Americans to see how drug prices push ordinary people to extremes.
“When you have a bad health-care system, it makes good people feel like outlaws,” Greenseid said.
“It’s demeaning. It’s demoralizing. It’s unjust.”
The caravaners aren’t the only ones looking north. Republicans and Democrats have produced federal and state proposals to import drugs from Canada.
Those ideas aren’t necessarily popular in Ottawa, where many worry that bulk buys from the United States could cause shortages or drive up prices.
Barry Power, director of therapeutic content with the Canadian Pharmacists Association, said the group is tracking both U.S. drug-buying proposals and reports of cross-border trade closely, but has yet to see a disruption to Canadian insulin supplies.
He said insulin prices in Canada are controlled through policy, including price caps and negotiations with manufacturers.
“This is something the U.S. could do,” he said.
When the Canadian scientist Frederick Banting co-discovered insulin in the early 1920s, he balked at commercializing it because it seemed unethical to profit from a critical drug. He eventually sold his share of the patent to the University of Toronto for $1, in the hope the drug would remain widely accessible.
In the nearly 100 years since, insulin has become a lifeline for millions. But the price in the United States has surged in ways its discoverers could not have predicted.
When Nystrom was diagnosed with diabetes as a child in the late 1990s, she said, her family paid about $15 to $20 a vial. Now, at 33, she sometimes pays more than $300 for the same amount.
Nicole Smith-Holt, who drove north with Greenseid and Nystrom, said her son spent about $1,000 per month on the drug. Alec Raeshawn Smith, an uninsured Type 1 diabetic, rationed his insulin supply due to cost, his mother said. He died in 2017.