Rising medical prices due to corruption, not insurance

Every November, while many people are getting into the holiday spirit and celebrating Thanksgiving, other people are dealing with the task of renewing insurance for the upcoming year. Every November is the time when insurance companies release the plans that they will be offering for the next year and when the marketplace opens to discover what insurance plans are available.  

Within the last ten years, insurance quality has plummeted, becoming more expensive and not offering benefits such as prescription coverage. It is very easy to blame insurance for the rising pharmaceutical prices, but the rising costs are actually due to pharmaceutical corruption.  

In the last ten years, the cost of pharmaceutical medications has raised exponentially. In ten years, the cost of a single EpiPen has raised by $506, bringing the cost of just one EpiPen to over $600. Insulin prices have also skyrocketed, going from a cost of $20 a vial ten years ago to $227 a vial in 2019. These prices are due to pharmaceutical corruption and markup that gives the company and CEO of the company producing the drug more money.  

Insurance companies are unable to meet these steep prices. There are over 133 million people in the United States living with a chronic illness or disability that requires treatment. 84 million people in the United States live with two or more chronic conditions that require treatment.  

All of these people need to pay for the treatments that they need and rely on insurance to help cover these costs. However, it is not possible for insurance companies to pay thousands of dollars for just one person who needs treatment, let alone the thousands of people on their plans who would need treatment.  

Insurance is not the solution to improving the cost of medications. Instead, people should look at removing corruption from the pharmaceutical industry. This could include creating a new branch of the government that would focus on keep prices ethical or by putting price cap on the amount of money a company or CEO can make from a product.  

These new regulations are truly needed in the United States. In 2017, Minnesota resident Alec Smith died because he was unable to afford to buy insulin. Seven days after running out of insulin, Smith died due to diabetic ketoacidosis, a diabetic complication that is avoidable with insulin. There has been a 10x increase in people dying to diabetes in the past two years. New regulations are needed in order to make sure that more people will not die because they are unable to afford their insulin.