Hey, Eli Lilly. You know what would have been a boss move?

A few weeks ago, when Twitter was bonkering around with all the Elon Musk rule changes and general madness, someone declared that they were Eli Lilly and announced that moving forward, they wouldn't be charging for insulin.

Would that have been the case.

The U.S. healthcare system is plenty confounding. 

On one hand, it's considered the best in a the world, a modern day marvel. The rich, the royal fly in from all over the world to be treated at Mass General, Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, M.C. Anderson. Medical breakthroughs happen here with greater regularity than they do most other places.

And yet...

Even people with reasonably good insurance can go broke if the wrong thing happens to a family member at the wrong time. And for those without insurance, well, at least now there's Obamacare. 

We have a growing shortage of medical personnel, further done in by covid's depleting the ranks, and it can take forever to get an appointment with a specialist, unless you're obviously in dire need of care, i.e., you're walking around with your severed head tucked under your arm, bleeding on the specialist's office carpet.

Modern medicine is complex, and our system makes it more complex than it has to be. 

Then there are medical outcomes. Sure, we can discover anesthesia and invent the heart transplant, but however they're measured, American outcomes aren't as good as those in similarly "developed" countries. 

And if our medical system in general is confounding, what are we to make of the drug delivery subset?

Knock on wood, but I don't have many prescriptions to worry about. I take the lowest dose, generic brand statin, and have a regular need for ear ointment to quell my chronic swimmer's ear. That's about it, prescription-wise.

Even with my limited prescription needs, I have a hard time figuring it out.

I haven't changed my prescription drug coverage since I went on Medicare 8 years ago. Yet some years I pay $81 for a tube of the ointment, while other year's it's $18. 

Others, of course, have it worse. They have to contend with "to cover or not to cover, that is the question" issues, with expensive copays, drugs disallowed, falling into the donut hole, generics vs. branded, formularies, drug tiers. 

Then there are drug costs, which has some folks slipping into Canada to buy at a far lower price than they could find in the U.S. 

One of the worst travesties of the U.S. healthcare system is the charges for insulin.

Basically, Americans pay about 8 to 10 times more for insulin than those who live in other industrialized countries.

So we've all heard the stories of people scrimping with their insulin, rationing a week's supply to last month. We've all heard the stories about people who've died because they've taken this approach.

Yes, starting in 2023, out of pocket costs for insulin will be capped for elders on Medicare at $35 a month. But what about the rest of the population? 

The galling thing about the price gouging is that insulin should really be off patent and cheaper. 

When insulin was first patented, 100 years ago, its inventors - not desiring to make any profit from this life-saving drug - sold the patent for $1. But drug companies - and the insulin market is dominated by a few of them, including Eli Lilly - have made small incremental changes over the years, which allows them to keep selling under their patent. And keep the prices up in the stratosphere, at least in the U.S. where there's never much appetite for regulating pharma. 

And then there was the tweet that could have saved a lot of lives, if it had been true:

The nine-word tweet was sent Thursday afternoon from an account using the name and logo of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co., and it immediately attracted a giant response: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”

The tweet carried a blue “verified” check mark, a badge that Twitter had used for years to signal an account’s authenticity — and that Twitter’s new billionaire owner, Elon Musk, had, while declaring “power to the people!” suddenly opened to anyone, regardless of their identity, as long as they paid $8. (Source: WaPo)

Would that it were true.

Alas...

The tweet apparently set off something of a panic out in Indiana, where Lilly is headquartered. Eventually, they got Twitter to get rid of the fake Lilly account. 

You know what would have been a boss move?

If Lilly decided to bit the bullet and lower the price of insulin.

It's not too late...

If they can sell insulin in Canada for 1/8 of the price they get for it in the US, why the hell not?