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pdx.social is a community for the Portland, Oregon, USA region. 🌲 Established April 6th, 2017 🌲

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MoonfirePDX

@rbreich While I absolutely agree with the sentiment of this post and the comments about how it should be free as it is required for a large part of the population to literally continue to exist, I'm a bit confused by your definition of "unit", which format of you're talking about, and where you're getting your data. I'm owned by a , so I have the misfortune of paying out-of-pocked prices for insulin. We recently switched from to , cheaper and biosimilar.

@rbreich These are both insulin U-100 products, meaning there are 100 units in each milliliter. They come in 1000 unit bottles and 5-packs of 300-unit "pens". The going price in the US last time I checked for the Lantus bottles was a around $350. The pen packs were about $550. When Semglee got approved, I switched to that because it has the same efficacy and I was able to buy a pen pack for about $100. I didn't check the bottle price because I don't use it fast enough.

@rbreich There's other issues here that also drive up costs, such as expiry times and syringe costs. The expiry on insulin containers once opened is ridiculously short, 30 days. When well cared for and kept properly, these can last for as long as a year after opening. It has been suggested that the time was kept arbitrarily short so as to drive up sales, though I can also see where this might help avoid lawsuits over infections from poorly kept insulin.

@rbreich My highest cost now is syringes at $20 for 100. @Chai@catgram.co only takes half a unit twice a day, so I'll spend $0.2 for the syringe and $.033 for the insulin, making her total cost per day $0.466. This does not take into account the costs for doctor's visits and syringe disposal.