Riders can sign up and pay the $100 ride cost at: insulincaravan.eventsmart.com/events/caravan-to-canada.
You don’t need to bribe your way into a camel caravan of smugglers to buy insulin in Canada.
Indeed, you can just catch the bus on Dec. 8 from Morgantown and back in 15 hours — from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Recently, we reported on this caravan being organized by a bipartisan duo of state legislators.
Delegates Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, and Jordan Hill, R-Nicholas, are putting politics aside to get this caravan rolling so state residents can purchase lower-cost insulin.
Some details are still to be determined about this caravan — meeting place to depart — but its message is clear.
A decade or more of increasing insulin prices, no make that a decade or more of price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry cannot be tolerated.
This issue is especially acute in West Virginia, which has the top rate of diabetes in the nation, at 16.2%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s more than 260,000 West Virginians that suffer the ill effects of this disease, defined by your blood glucose, also called your blood sugar, being too high.
Blood glucose — your main source of energy — comes from the food you eat. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, helps glucose from food get into your cells for energy.
When your body doesn’t make enough — or any — insulin or doesn’t use it well, glucose stays in your blood and doesn’t reach your cells.
According to The American Diabetes Association, the average price of insulin nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013 and has continued to climb.
Those rising prices are also causing diabetics to skip doses or ration their insulin, which can mean serious complications or death.
This year, developments in Congress and at the state level point to ending these price increases.
Bipartisan U.S. senators introduced the Insulin Price Reduction Act in July while Colorado became the first state to pass legislation combating the increasing price of insulin.
Fleischauer, Hill and others on the House Health Committee also report they are working on legislation to curb the cost of insulin for state residents in 2020.
We urge bipartisan support for legislation to not allow insulin to be subject to deductibles and cap monthly co-pays. Out-of-control prices for insulin need to end in 2020, but for now we encourage people to take the bus to Canada.
Prices there are estimated to be only about 10% of what they are in the U.S.
And you won’t need to worry about paying off profiteers in suits and ties to stay healthy or alive.
