Diabetics charter bus for 815-mile round trip to Canada for affordable insulin

“One in four Americans are rationing their insulin because they can’t afford it.”

That’s what diabetes advocate Quinn Nystrom wrote in a Twitter post after orchestrating a trip to Canada for a group of Minnesotans to purchase life-saving insulin last month.

The group of diabetics and caregivers chartered a bus to the city of London in Ontario, Canada, where they paid a total of $1,924.10 for their insulin order. In the United States, the same order would have cost $23,789.24, Nystrom said. That’s 12 times higher than in Canada.

It was a 15-hour trek from Minneapolis to London, and 815 miles round trip, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported, but the time was a small price to pay.

“If I’m a few hours without insulin, I start to feel very sick. If I’m a few days without insulin, I could die,” Deb Souther said, according to KMSP.

In Canada, a three-month supply of insulin can be purchased without a prescription, the TV station reported. What’s a $340 vial in the U.S. is only about $30 in Canada.

Minnesota made news in 2017 when 26-year-old Alec Smith died after trying to ration his insulin after aging out of his mother’s insurance plan, MinnPost reported. His insulin cost $1,300 a month without insurance, but his $35,000-a-year salary disqualified him from state medical assistance.

Minnesota lawmakers tried to establish an insulin program to provide the drug to people who can’t afford it, but the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act “was left out of this year’s budget bills,” the Austin Herald reported. However, Gov. Tim Walz said he is open to calling a “special legislative session” on the issue once lawmakers can agree on how to fund the program.

While lawmakers discuss insulin, Nystrom and others with diabetes need it to live.

“Insulin should not be a partisan issue. This isn’t a red or blue issue,” Nystrom said, according to KSTP. “This is a life or death issue for people.”

“This can’t be a long-term solution of let’s just go to Canada. Let’s just go to Mexico. That’s not feasible,” diabetic Sarah Ginsberg said, according to KMSP. “We need change here in our own country, we should not be relying on another country to keep us alive.”

This story was originally published July 8, 2019 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Diabetics charter bus for 815-mile round trip to Canada for affordable insulin."