I was having a discussion with someone on how people in the US are not lucky living in today's world of modern medicine, because their expenses for insulin have skyrocketed over the last decade. It used to be around $45 for a month's supply, now many people are up to nearly $1.5k a month (which is double the mortgage rates for many people) just to survive. I said it's ridiculous that a medicine that costs very little to make is being exploited with price hikes of that nature. This leads to people rationing their insulin and suffering ketoacidosis and losing limbs because they literally can't afford more than what they already have.
I said that this is worse than when we
didn't have insulin readily available to us. At least when there was no medicine, you weren't being led on to believe that you could grow old and healthy with the condition. Now doctors tell you there are options for a long healthy life, but you have to helplessly watch as the resources you desperately need are right there in front of your nose, but you can't have any due to human greed and the circumstances you ended up in beyond you ability to change. I think that's so much worse.
This was met immediately with the message 'It didn't cost "next to nothing" to research, develop and distribute the life saving medicine you are in no way entitled to.'
My blood was boiling.
Access to health care and medicine is a human right, and ignorant buttfaces like this are exactly what's wrong with the US healthcare system. Nobody chooses a chronic illness or lethal allergy, and to extort the people who desperately need it with prices they can't afford just to line the pockets of people who did nothing to contribute to the existence of the medication (most end up buying their way into the companies) is criminal at the very least.
People who think like this exist in too big numbers to my liking, and it's maddening!