I should not have to cross a border to buy my insulin. I should not have to buy my insulin in a parking lot off a stranger as if it were a drug deal. None of us should fear death from a perfectly manageable disease, but we do because American drug makers can arbitrarily raise prices to line their pockets. And Congress hasn’t done anything to stop them. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Your pancreas doesn’t produce any insulin. You have to rely on injecting insulin every few hours or so. In 2001, this vial cost $34.8. Today, the list price is about $275. Insulin has been around for 100 years and hasn’t really changed in the last 20. So you’d expect insulin prices to go down, not up. Instead, just by slightly tweaking formulas or packaging, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi can extend patents, increase prices and prevent affordable generics. The sticker price is made higher by so-called safe harbor regulations. These protect what would otherwise be illegal kickbacks between greedy pharma companies, pharmacy benefit managers and other middlemen. The price for kickbacks is ultimately passed on to me, the diabetic. We either buy insulin or we die and we would like to live. We would like to live. We would like to live. My son Alec was an energetic, fun loving. He was just, he was just so full of life. When Alec was no longer eligible to stay on my insurance, he went to the pharmacy, the very first time, without insurance to purchase it and was told that it was $1,300. So he ended up leaving the pharmacy with nothing. He tried to eat a low-carb diet and stretch out his insulin. His body was found about three days prior to payday. Every single one of his insulin pens were completely empty. So he had used everything that he was able to use and passed away. What are we doing, Robin? We’re going to be patronizing the good pharmacies of Tijuana, Mexico. Dang, that’s a lot of medicine. So we have about $8,000 to $10,000 worth of insulin sitting here on my lap. And we got it for about between 5% and 10% of U.S. retail price. So, I found this guy, since I got introduced to this underground world on the app called OfferUp, and he constantly has insulin on deck. I just text him. He tells me the expiration date. He tells me the price per box. He’s been like my number one dealer, like drug dealer, I would say. I created an Instagram account to show Type 1 diabetics leading normal lives, but it’s also become this platform for people to donate and trade diabetes supplies. It’s terrifying that people have to turn to Instagram or any type of social media for insulin. For us, this is like oxygen. Some local representatives have had the audacity to say that if we struggle to find insulin, we should go to the emergency room. But I take six to 10 shots a day. Should I move into the nurse’s station? Now, to their credit, Congress is finally investigating the rising cost of insulin, but there is a long road between this investigation and real change, because big pharma companies like Eli Lilly are huge donors to congressional re-election campaigns. I have been working with legislators to create not only state laws, but federal laws that would hold pharmaceutical companies accountable. Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi should answer our calls for transparency. If they can’t, they should welcome generic competition, which will set a fair price. They’ll tell you they just released a cheaper insulin at about half the cost. But it’s not good enough. As long as big pharma can get away with zero transparency and patent abuse, they will. It’s time that Congress moved beyond this investigation. We need our representatives to actually hold drug companies accountable by fixing our broken patent and kickback laws. Because we shouldn’t have to risk our lives to save our lives.