Media Disinformation on American and Canadian Insulin prices
Despite the notion that Canadian insulin is far cheaper than the U.S., with many left-wing sources such as Business Insider, Slate magazine, CNN, the Washington post, MSNBC, and others reporting that Canadian insulin is far cheaper than U.S. Insulin, this is simply not the case; just for comparison, there is 25 dollar insulin that is provided in the U.S. by Walmart, with no medicare or insurance needed, in comparison to 50 dollar insulin in Canada, and Medicare, Medicaid and Health insurance frequently helps to pay for this insulin (80% or more), making it even cheaper for the end consumer. American Insulin prices in these left-wing articles is often reported to be between 285-350 dollars per vial (285 dollars according to Business insider, 350 according to etc.), vs. only 50 dollars per vial in Canada, supposedly demonstrating how terrible the U.S. medical and drug system apparently is, as according to them insulin is over priced. This is clearly proof that the evil, greedy capitalists have over priced their insulin, and that we need to switch to a government-ran, socialist system which will keep prices low, clearly, never mind that ultra cheap capitalist insulin exists that is half the price of government provided Canadian insulin. No mention is made of course of the type of insulin, difference in quality or quality control, or how the insulin is made, only that they must be exactly the same (even though many different type of insulin related drugs exist, such as more expensive fast acting insulin used only for emergencies, slow acting insulin for daily use, insulin via injection or pills, medicine which boosts insulin production or replicates insulin vs. actual raw insulin, and so on), and that as no individual gets insulin from health insurance of medicare apparently, and they must pay for it out of pocket (almost no diabetic pays for it completely out of pocket, in real life), so, obviously, these costs must be extremely high.
The simple reality is, this is not true. The problem is in the promotion of half-truths; it is true that insulin can be upwards to 285-350 dollars per vial in the United States, but not every single form of insulin is 350 dollars per vial. In the same way a car can cost up to 100,000 dollars, but not all cars are this expensive, insulin can be 350 dollars per vial in the U.S., but averages around 90 dollars, with some forms of insulin as low as 25 dollars per vial, such as a form of Insulin provided by walmart, which is cheaper than the Canadian insulin cost at 50 dollars per vial. The quality obviously differs between variants, but nonetheless Insulin is not necessarily 350 dollars per vial, and neither is Asthma medication for example, which is another related drug price lie promoted by the same left-wing outlets (). For those of you interested in the raw data, you can merely look at a price listing of different forms of insulin on various websites, and come to the same conclusion yourself that it's not actually 285 dollars per vial for every single person. Insulin does not necessarily NEED to be 285-350 dollars per vile, and it is grotesque that the media flagrantly and blatantly lies about this. It is quite revolting, and disgusting, that the media continues to perpetuate such obvious lies, but even more dumbfounding is that so many people believe it. These arguments have been made by political candidates (such as Bernie Sanders or Justin Treduea), and there is such a widespread belief among the public that Insulin is cheaper in Canada, that people have been flocking to Canada in order to get it, instead of just, going to the local grocery store such as Walmart and picking the cheaper form of Insulin. The media disinformation is hurting people, and it is not just malicious for it's own sake, but willing to lead millions of people suffer who unfortunately believe these lies, to push a political objective. Lives depend upon us being correct, and misinformation puts those lives at risk needlessly. It not only is immoral to lie for it's own sake, but given the damage that it can cause; people are risking their lives to go to Canada and get insulin, when there is already cheap Insulin in the U.S.
More importantly than the actual price of Insulin, is how people pay for it; few people pay in the U.S. for the entire cost of insulin themselves, or buy insulin with money spent "out-of-pocket". Health insurance by law must be provided by your employer in the United States, and health insurance frequently covers insulin costs, generally 80% or more. For those without health insurance, or in addition to their existing health insurance, there is also Medicare and Medicaid, which can also pay up to 80% with Medicare D, or the full 100% depending on how life threatening the form of diabetes is. If one qualifies as having a disability according to Social Security via the social security Bluebook, they automatically qualify for Medicare D, and potentially A and B, which will assist in paying for insulin, or depending on the severity, completely pay for diabetic medication. By the end of the user's 20% co-payments, they spend as little as 20 dollars for each 100 dollars of insulin purchased, where as Canadians actually pay the full price without co payments, being forced to pay 50 dollars per insulin vial to their own government who is the only supplier in their single payer healthcare system, which is a higher cost for a lower quality version of insulin. Where as the U.S. government helps citizens pay for their insulin, the Canadian government does not, and so the price differences matter substantially; 250 dollar insulin in the U.S. only costs the consumer 50 dollars if they have health insurance or qualify for Medicare supplemental copay (of which virtually all diabetics do), meaning 250 dollar insulin in the U.S. only costs an individual diabetic person 50 dollars. For those with life threatening diabetes nearly 100% of the cost can be covered, thus leading to no payments at all. When a civilian does not need to pay for their own medicine, they tend to buy more expensive medication than they otherwise would be able to afford, and as the government assists in payment, 250 dollar insulin only costs the average American citizen 50 dollars, meaning with government copay or government mandated copay (such as via insurance), the price is actually the same price or lower than Canada. Health insurance is almost always provided to american citizens by their place of employment, and thus few people actually pay for their own health insurance costs. One, once again, wants insurance to be of a higher quality, when they do not pay for it themselves.
The price of health insurance is not a problem for the consumer, as it is not the consumer who pays for it, but rather the business that is required by law to give their workers expensive health insurance. Lowering the cost of health insurance may benefit large companies, but it would not necessarily be a benefit to most individuals, who do not need pay for health insurance themselves. Healthcare related issues have a has a tendency to expand in to multiple other issues, but the simple reality is, insulin is not only cheaper in the U.S., but often paid for by the U.S. government. A consumer does not worry as much about the price when they themselves don't pay for it, or when they only have to pay 20% of the cost, and thus Americans tend to buy more expensive insulin, as they can afford it. For those that can't, there is extremely cheap insulin available, as well as government welfare programs to help pay for it in it's entirety. This is on top of other benefits to the poor, which helps to provide them with housing (Section 9 government housing), food (SNAPS programs), and cellphone services, that lower taxes for those under the poverty line, and even programs that provide money directly (such as from social security), all of which help free up money to pay for other things, such as medication. As a result, if an individual for some reason did not qualify for medicare or medicaid benefits, or have health insurance, they likely qualify for other programs, which would assist them in paying for other costs in their daily lives, freeing up money to help pay for medication. While it is the law that any diabetic qualifies for at least some nonpayments to help pay for insulin medication, there are also other benefits to the poor, that can help them pay for a variety of things.
The Purpose of Disinformation
It has often been said that the purpose of disinformation is not necessarily to convince, but to confuse, to suppress the truth, and to make it impossible for the average person to regularly discern what the truth is without a tremendous amount of effort. Simply by over-saturating a topic with lies, and flooding it with misinformation, they can wash over the truth, making it difficult to discern reality, obfuscating what the truth is and thus effectively suppressing it, rather than completely changing people's minds. It is as important to make the truth difficult to find, as it is to actually change hearts and minds and win them over to their position. You can't win over everybody, but simply making it hard for people to see reality is far easier. With this added "tax" or difficulty in finding the truth, most people will not spend the time or effort to wade through all the muck, or succumb to their own biases in the process, leaving only a small percentage who know the whole story. The mere act of lying makes it difficult to tell what is true and what is fake, and requires extra effort to break down the lie and discern the truth; while telling a lie is easy, finding the truth can be exceedingly difficult. It has been said that a lie travels half way around the world before the truth has even gotten off the ground, and very few people will ever read the correction, assuming one is ever posted. The key purpose of disinformation is not just to persuade or convince, but to suppress the truth, to make the truth difficult or even impossible in some circumstances to discern. If one cannot convince the enemy, it is possible to simply mislead them. It is important to remember these lies are not stand-alone concepts, but are designed specifically to push for a very carefully laid out political objective. There is an overarching objective, and so the lies serve a specific political purpose other than sewing mere confusion for it's own sake; it is designed to help those in office gain power and push a particular policy agenda, which often is not to the benefit of the people.
It is frequent that we see story after story regurgitating the same set of lies, with the entire left-wing media in lock-step with each other, to push specific political agendas, chiefly healthcare reform via single payer healthcare. Be it about misleading asthma medication costs, American costs in general being higher, Americans getting less money from the government, or other obvious and easily disprovable lies, these lies weave a narrative of increasingly costly The U.S. government pays more for healthcare per citizen, has a higher survival rate than, and has an overall better healthcare system than most other first world countries, yet with left-wing inundation of misinformation, many believe this is not the case. Many arguments can be made about the effectiveness of each individual system if they decide to go through them carefully, but no-one can refute the simple raw data, that the U.S. has a substantially higher survival rate than most European countries, and a survival rate roughly on par with most Scandinavian countries in Europe. Taken from United Nation's healthcare data, an international source on the issue, we can find that
Despite this, many still believe the U.S. healthcare system is far worse, despite having lower costs, the government sharing a greater burden of these costs, a higher survival rate, and higher access to care than many comparable first world countries. The poor automatically qualify for medicare and medicaid, and all emergency healthcare is provided for free in the U.S.
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