David Lazarus on living with diabetes
I just spotted this Marketplace interview with David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times. He was diagnosed with diabetes in November 2007.The title of the interview is 'Living with (and paying for) diabetes'. When he was asked about what he's learned about the costs of living with this chronic disease, he answered
They're extensive. In some cases, some diabetics tell me the spend about $10,000 a year on this thing. You're talking about your blood glucose meter, you're talking about the test strips that are required for that (and I do as many as seven to 10 tests a day), but there are other things as well: you've got you're insulin, you've got your needles, you've got the lancets you need to poke your finger -- again 7 to 10 times a day -- and so you have a lot of fixed costs attached to a chronic disease.He also talks about the $1 per strip cost. Maybe with his focus on publicizing the costs something may happen.
One of these days some company will wake up to the idea that they can provide accurate strips for $0.50 each and capture a big share of the market. I can't wait for that to happen.
Labels: costs, diabetes, interview
posted by Bernard @ 2:29 AM
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