Like almost all Type 2 diabetics, for years I have taken a drug called Metformin. Even though it is generic, it still costs nearly $700 a month no matter which pharmacy I go to.
I am a health care lawyer, and I represent doctors, clinics, surgical centers and medical providers. A few years ago, I was discussing how expensive prescription drugs are with a home health agency owner, and she said, “Well, I just go to Mexico.”
I said, “Mexico?”
She said she just went to Tijuana several times a year and saved so much money that she paid for a San Diego vacation out of her savings.
So I went to Mexico. I parked in the Burger King right on the border, walked across to a Mexican pharmacy just 50 yards from the border, and bought my Metformin without a prescription – same manufacturer, same bottle (even in English) – for $69.99 for a month’s supply. Less than one-tenth of what it cost in America.
Later, as my disease progressed, I needed insulin shots once a day. And again, although insulin has been generic for decades everywhere, it costs more than $1,000 a month here. So, I found a pharmacy in Canada where insulin is not only inexpensive, but you can walk into any pharmacy and get it without a prescription, over-the-counter, just like aspirin here.
I found Mark’s Marine Pharmacy, so named because it was on Marine Avenue in Vancouver, British Columbia. Because I was American, they wanted a doctor’s prescription, but after that, they take my credit card and ship me the insulin through the mail for one-tenth the price that it costs here.
One day on the phone, I asked, “I’m just curious. How much of your business is Americans trying to get cheaper drugs?”
“Oh,” the pharmacist said, “Only about 99.9% of our business.”
And I’m one of the lucky ones. I can afford to go to Tijuana or research Canadian pharmacies. The saddest day I ever spent working in Congress was attending a hearing in the House in which a father testified that his young diabetic daughter had died because he couldn’t afford all the insulin she needed, and he had tried to ration it. His young child had died because of the cost of a generic drug which is nearly free in other developed countries. But not ours.
But there is hope. Unless Mike Lee gets reelected.
For the first time ever since Medicare was enacted 57 years ago, Congress has passed a new law to help Medicare beneficiaries with the cost of prescriptions drugs. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law on August 16. Mike Lee voted against it.
For the first time ever, the new law requires the HHS secretary to negotiate prices for drugs covered by Medicare. It also requires drug companies to pay rebates and penalties if their prices rise faster than inflation for drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries. Even more helpful, the new law caps out-of-pocket drug costs for Part D Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 annually.
For diabetics specifically, beginning in January 2023, the IRA requires that all Part D and Medicare Advantage plans must cap covered insulin at $35 per month. And starting in 2024, IRA will cap all Medicare Part D premiums so that they cannot increase more than 6% annually.
The hypocrisy of Mike Lee voting against this new law and its provisions to help Medicare beneficiaries is disgraceful. The Veterans Administration negotiates its drug prices. Medicaid imposed drug rebates on pharmaceutical companies in 1990 to address rising drug prices and gouging by Big Pharma.
Mike Lee and the Republicans talk incessantly about cutting Medicare spending – but now that IRA makes it possible for Medicare to save billions by negotiating and capping drug prices for Medicare’s 83 million beneficiaries, Lee votes against it.
Even worse, Lee is not satisfied to simply vote against the new law, he and three other senators have introduced their own bill “to repeal drug price control provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Mike Lee doesn’t represent us. He won’t even help us. Voting Lee out of office is not only necessary. Your life might depend on it.
Janet Jenson
Janet I. Jenson is an attorney practicing in Salt Lake City.
