Insulin: Capitalist or Cure?
As new technology in medical fields have been developed, capitalist forces have manipulated and controlled the markets, dampening the benefit of these developments. One of these developments is insulin. Diabetic people all around the world need and deserve access to insulin. Without it, they may die or face severe health consequences. Due to a capitalist medical market that values profit over health, access to insulin becomes sporadic, and many lower-income diabetics lose access completely. This manipulation of capitalism does not belong in the medical world.
Diabetic people need access to insulin in order to survive. Without insulin, their bodies can’t function properly: heart disease, vision loss, and kidney failure as well as immuno-compromisastion are just a few of the issues faced by diabetics without their necessary supplies of insulin. In a medically reviewed Health Central article by Dr. Alexis McKee, she specifies that “if you take multiple injections of insulin daily, your long-acting basal insulin is never to be missed or forgotten… It is not safe to go without it even for a day… Rapid-acting insulin lasts for four hours, so if no other action has been taken to change the infusion site, then within approximately six hours, you can be at risk for a life-threatening condition called ketoacidosis” (McKee). The only issue is that insulin is not always readily available to most people. Even WHO highlights “the alarming state of global access to insulin and diabetes care, and finds that high prices, low availability of human insulin, few producers dominating the insulin market and weak health systems are the main barriers to universal access [of insulin]” (WHO). Diabetic people need insulin in order to survive, and even short times without it can have fatal repercussions. Insulin is so heavily abused by capitalist manufacturers that many people are left without access to insulin, and become at risk of serious side effects. Because of the greed and selfishness that drive insulin manufacturers to raise the price of insulin in order to raise profits, lower-income diabetics lose access to insulin and have to look towards cheaper and less-effective brands to get their medication. This is unacceptable. Why should someone have to sacrifice their health and well-being because they don’t have the financial safety to buy medication?
For some people, this issue may not seem like the biggest deal. Especially in the U.S. where many citizens have access to private healthcare, and those in much lower tax brackets have access to Medicare. But this issue is still extremely prevalent. Particularly because “roughly 20 million Americans of all ages [have] no health insurance” (Paulus). This staggering statistic proves that there are many people in the US who may not have access to insulin because of their economic standing. This causes people to sacrifice their health due to insulin’s lack of affordability; “news stories regularly report on people who died or suffered severe complications because they could no longer afford insulin, and as many as one in four people with diabetes report rationing insulin to save money” (Glied, Zhu). Insulin is expensive because the companies that produce insulin make it so. Frederick Banting sold the insulin patent for $1 each because he knew how monumental of an impact his discovery would make. The corporations who now produce insulin are what drive the prices up and limit the amount of insulin produced. Because these corporations have control over the insulin market, they limit the output of insulin to create a greater need for insulin as people can’t get it easily, and they hike up the prices more because insulin becomes more valuable as product supply “decreases.” — However, product supply isn’t actually decreasing. Insulin manufacturers are just limiting the amount of insulin they are selling because there is always a need for insulin, and the greater the need for insulin, the higher the demand, and the higher the demand, the more people will pay for it, and the more people will pay for it, the more they will pay for it if there are only limited amounts that they can get. Northeastern’s Becca Hamberg illustrates this process in her Health, Humanities, and Society article concerning the prioritization of capitalism over the health of Americans:
“[insulin] price increases were driven by the greediness of three companies: Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly — not because the improvements required more capital to manufacture. They have a monopolistic oligopoly hold on the market. Typically, this kind of inelastic pricing is reserved for monopolies where there is no competition and therefore no price ceiling. The inelasticity of the price is also driven by the inherent need for insulin because it is necessary for survival” (Hamberg).
This toxic cycle makes it nearly impossible for an uninsured person or someone from a lower-income tax bracket to afford and get their necessary supply of insulin. The capitalist market surrounding insulin has limited the effect of the benefit of insulin. When people don’t have access to this drug, it quickly loses impact and simply becomes a less-than important discovery that only marginally helps the struggle many people fight with diabetes.
Because insulin has become a product of a capitalist market, the same issues that affect a capitalist market affect the production and distribution of insulin. There is a supply and demand chain, and in capitalist society, it is generally seen as smart to have a higher demand amount than supply amount. If there is less demand than you need for the supply amount you have produced, the revenue you make from selling your product will be smaller because people won’t pay as much for a product with less demand. When there is high demand and small supply, profits rise, and people will pay more for a product that is more difficult to get. This proves that companies will limit their stock of insulin in order to spike their income despite the need for insulin in the U.S. and the inability to access this insulin. Because insulin is part of a capitalist market, its production is more concerned with individual benefit rather than group benefit. The individual (in this case the company producing and selling insulin) will prioritize its profits over the health of the general public.
Part of why I want to emphasize the importance of access to insulin is because of my grandmother and her struggle with type 1 diabetes. Her main struggle with her illness happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. She had just moved from Fresno, CA to Redondo Beach, CA. Because of the move she lost access to her doctors and other medical resources. Before being able to find new doctors, California was shut down, and she lost the ability to find the resources she needed to stay healthy in case of an emergency. During the pandemic, my grandmother was considered high-risk and immuno-compromised, so any small sickness may have severely affected her and her well-being. In early 2021 she got a cold. This affected her much more severely than a normal person because with that cold became a distaste for food and a loss of appetite. Because she wasn’t eating normally she experienced many random spikes and drops in insulin and began having other health issues because of this. A month or two after her cold, she suffered from a heart attack and was temporarily hospitalized. After this heart attack, she suffered from a lack of energy and decreased mobility, and didn’t exercise as consistently as she previously had. She was still experiencing loss of appetite, and now lethargy on top of that. Her condition worsened over time, and in early 2022 she suffered another heart attack and was hospitalized once again. This was her final hospitalization and after about a week in the hospital she passed away. During her time of health issues, there were many other costs and resources she had to expend and get. These included a 24 hour in-home nurse as well as a couple months at a rehabilitation center. My family was lucky because we had the insurance and financial resources to help give her the assistance she needed while experiencing her health issues. A lot of other families who suffer with the same issues do not have the same resources, and are unable to afford the help and healthcare they need. And if they can’t even afford the insulin they need to originally moderate their health, there is no point in trying to maintain a good medical well-being, because it is impossible without insulin.
In short, because insulin is a drug that is needed by a large population of people to survive, it should not be part of a capitalized market, and people should not have difficulty getting access to it. Because some people are unable to get access to necessary insulin, the actual benefit of the discovery is overshadowed and often underplayed because it doesn’t help the large number of people that it could.
Works Cited
Glied, Sherry, and Benjamin Zhu. “Not so Sweet: Insulin Affordability over Time.”
Commonwealth Fund, 25 Sept. 2020, www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/sep/not-so-sweet-insulin-affordability-over-time.
Hamberg, Becca. “Increasing Insulin Prices Highlight the Prioritization of Capitalism over the
Health of Human Beings in the American Healthcare System.” Humanities Center, 19 May 2021, cssh.northeastern.edu/humanities/increasing-insulin-prices-highlight-the-prioritization-of-capitalism-over-the-health-of-human-beings-in-the-american-healthcare-system/.
McKee, Alexis. “How Long Can a Person with Diabetes Go without Insulin? — Healthcentral.”
HealthCentral, 2023, www.healthcentral.com/condition/type-1-diabetes/how-long-can-a-diabetic-go-without-insulin.
Paulus, Nathan. “How Many Americans Are Uninsured?” MoneyGeek.Com, 2023,
www.moneygeek.com/insurance/health/analysis/americans-without-coverage/#:~:text=Roughly%2030%20million%20Americans%20of,health%20insurance%20varies%20between%20states.
World Health Organization. (2021). New WHO report maps barriers to insulin availability and
suggests actions to promote universal access. https://www.who.int/news/item/12-11-2021-new-who-report-maps-barriers-to-insulin-availability-and-suggests-actions-to-promote-universal-access#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20published%20by,main%20barriers%20to%20universal%20access
