Dear Medtronic, Please Stop Price Gouging During The Coronavirus
This is another open letter to Medtronic, who makes and distributes insulin pump supplies that my life depends on.
My last letter led to a very long conversation with a Resolution Specialist named Buffy who reached out to me and asked me to call. We spoke for over an hour, and Buffy promised to bring up my concerns during a meeting and referred me to a financial assistance program via a different department.
To summarize our conversation, Buffy sympathized with how difficult it can be to work with insurance companies who don’t want to cover supplies. She pointed out as much as she’d like to influence them, their decisions and policies are beyond Medtronic’s control. Understandable.
I argued Medtronic may set the prices of infusion sets and insulin pump supplies at its own discretion. Buffy agreed, and promised to bring up my concern at another company meeting.
Now I find it really interesting that the price of infusionsets has increased by roughly $50 since I last purchased from Medtronic directly. Why did Medtronic decided to move forward with an approximate 42% price increase taking the price from roughly $120 to $170 especially during a global pandemic and economic crisis?
It’s Hard Enough Managing Diabetes, Let Alone Paying for It
Thankfully I’m healthy (for now) but I’ve lost every main source of income since NYC closed down. The unemployment website for the state of NY is crashing and restricting people with last names A-F, G-N, etc to apply on certain days. I’m waiting on my check. My blood sugar is high as I write this letter, because I’ve been having trouble using the supplies I have.
Each infusion set box contains 10 infusion sets, which lasts roughly 1 month given each can only be used once and must be changed every 3 days.
Just last week I attempted to insert two mio infusion sets into the left side of my abdomen. The needle sank in as normal, but when I reached down to remove it, I saw the tube was filled with blood. A painful way to waste $17. This happened again when I attempted to insert one at a different location. $34 wasted. Third time was the charm, I found an area to insert on my upper buttocks, no blood. $41 just to connect the pump to my body. And the site on my upper buttox it only lasted 2 days before the high blood sugars started mysteriously setting in, and I’ve been battling ketoacidosis all week.
Mr. Geoff Martha, CEO of medtronic as of 3/27/20, have you ever peeled off the adhesive of an infusion set and had to catch the fountain of blood before it leaps all over the room?
Mr. Sean Salmon, Executive Vice President and Group President for the Diabetes Group, have you ever had a tube ripped from your body on the subway on your way to work?
Ms. Karen Parkhill, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Medtronic, how much money have you lost on medical supplies this year? How many medical supply companies have exploited you and your friends and family for obscene profits at the expense of your health, wellbeing, and dreams?
Don’t Blame Your Front Line People
God forbid Buffy lose her job for advocating on behalf of your company. Everyone on this leadership board is responsible for the prices, based on the conversation I had with Buffy I’m sure she and I would have been able to come up with some sort of reasonable solution.
Now, I’m asking one last time, is it possible to work together on this? Or do you all admire the work of Martin Shkreli so much that we would need that sort of intervention to bring about change in this world?
I can’t tell you how many classes I could be taking if I didn’t have to pay so much for these supplies. How much business I could have invested in. How much time I could be spending doing other things for our community. But if I can never fulfill my dreams in life, I might as well do something about what’s stopping me.
I’ve been managing diabetes for 20 years. So well that I was part of a study that convinced doctors in the Wilmington, DE area to prescribe insulin pumps to children in 2002. The financial burden, which exists for everyone (including the insurance companies) became more relevant to me in January of 2019 when I lost health insurance, and the cost of these supplies only continues to rise.
You Have the Power to Stop This. Please Use It.
If you want to put a face to the problems you’re causing, don’t just look at my touched up headshot. Go to www.camppossibilities.org and look at the children you see at camp. That is my family. Those are my little brothers and sisters, many of whom wear a pump like me and because of me — they saw how wearing a pump enabled me to play football in high school, thrive in college, and chase my dreams in New York. I grew up with the first people to ever attend that camp, and we’ve passed on the torch to the kids who were our first campers that are now counselors supervising their own little brothers and sisters.
But my generation is struggling with the cost of managing diabetes, with or without insurance. And I can’t even tell you which of those children you see have parents who struggle like we do, but given most families receive financial assistance for their children to attend camp, you can assume that most of those children do suffer, and that they will especially as you continue to increase these prices.
I will advocate for them as long as I can. And if you, like Buffy, are wondering why I’m the only voice you’re hearing right now, it’s because what time does a parent have to write these letters and conduct all these research when they are raising children — especially a child with diabetes? I only have myself to worry about… and I’m a trained professional writer.
And… maybe you don’t hear from them porque muchos padres quieren aprender mejor inglés antes de escribirles, pero esos padres saben muy bien como los precios de sus suministros están dañando incontables niños y niñas que sufren por diabetes.
Yo soy la voz para ellos también, I am their voice too.
This is my second, and hopefully last open letter to you. History will remember Martin Shkreli for raising the price of Daraprim, and those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. I think Medtronic is aware of history, and perhaps that explains the more gradual approach of raising prices at 40% increments, so that hopefully people won’t notice…
We’re noticing.
Sincerely,
Jason M. Hewett
The views expressed in this open letter do not necessarily reflect those of anyone other than the author, Jason Hewett, who can be reached for comment at jason@jasonhewett.com.
