Posted on 08/20/23
| News Source: WMAR2NEWS
Buying insulin can cost people hundreds of dollars a month and it's not something people can choose not to take.
"They need insulin to live, they cannot go without it so it is a constant burden and responsibility that they have to be able to access insulin," said Campbell Hutton, Vice President of Advocacy at the Juvenile diabetes research fund
For some people it can lead to cutting important pieces of their budget out.
"The price of insulin has skyrocketed in the last decade to the point where people are having to make choices that no one should have to make you know whether they buy groceries for the week or buy insulin," said Hutton.
The juvenile diabetes research fund has been advocating for insulin prices to go down and it's starting to work.
In Maryland for people with state insurance the maximum co-pay is $30 for insulin.
For people not covered by the state, their costs can vary.
Now, Amazon Pharmacy is cutting the costs for anyone with automatic coupons.
"There's often branded medication that there isn't a cheaper alternatives that patients need. In this case amazon pharmacy provides access to automated coupons for 15 brands of insulin," said Dr. Vin Gupta, chief medical officer of Amazon Pharmacy.
These coupons don't need to be clipped out of a catalog, they're automatically applied to your order when you buy the insulin.
"It'll be applied when they're checking out and when they're paying that cost will automatically be reduced to the lowest amount with that coupon."
The juvenile diabetes research fund says the fight to lower insulin costs isn't over but decisions like this can be a major help.