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Shane Patrick Boyle, died in March 2017 because of complications from Type 1 Diabetes.
Story goes - he moved from Texas to Arkansas to care for his sick mother, and because he left the state (meaning he had his prescription drug coverage through an ObamaCare exchange most likely), he lost his reduced price benefit for insulin. He started a GoFundMe trying to raise $750 for insulin, and ended up $50 short at only $700.
The conclusion is that he died not from type 1 diabetes, but from high drug prices, cruelty and apathy. It's never mentioned why a grown man with a known condition that affects over a million other adults was in such dire straights both regarding his physical and financial health, nor is it mentioned why Boyle waited to start his GoFundMe until he was literally knocking on death's door, but like the rest of the OP article, no context, no closer examination...just claim cruelty in drive by monologue.
Nope, we as a society owed Boyle all our resources to keep him alive regardless of his input, actions or behaviors. That we did not all run to Boyle's rescue is proof of America's "unique cruelty."
How much does the insulin actually cost? Is it different, depending where you live? Diabetics here get their insulin free of charge. I have no idea if it actually costs much to make.
Are you saying it's his own fault dying for lack of a common drug like insulin? I'm asking so I can understand your thinking on a matter like this.
If you got to Atlantic City you could have gone 10 miles or less & hit rural.
Yeah. I just had no idea where I was. A map would have helped me for sure....... I just hoped the bus would stop somewhere like that. It didn't.......
I didn't realise this was the only chance I would get to do this in my life. Every other visit after that was just to NYC and Las Vegas. Judy is willing to ride the subway, so we have been down to Coney Island, and Queens.
But she has no intention of going to Iowa. "What's there David? "Errm middle Americans. Open spaces...." "I'll tell you what's there David. Corn. Lots of it. I don't want to go see fields of corn......."
I have always wanted to visit rural America. For some reason, it has always been Iowa I want to go see. My wife just refuses, and I won't do it alone.
30 years ago I had the chance, but I made a bad mistake. When I got on the bus going from NYC to Los Angeles, the idea in my mind was to get off the bus when we arrived in a small rural town. I didn't know the bus just went from city to city. I remember when we arrived in Pittsburgh, I was ready to give up, I needed to get off that bus, and get on one going to more rural areas. I didn't even have the names of any towns to head for.
So, I rode on until we got to Zanesville in Ohio. It was dark, and about 10pm. I'd been riding that bus for about 15 hours. I was so desperate, I just got off the bus, hoping I would find a motel. I did, and spent some time wondering round the town the morning after. I was very impressed with the big old wooden houses, with the porch, like in the movies. I even saw a kid riding his bike, throwing newspapers into yards. But, it wasn't what I was really looking for.
I gave up, and headed back towards NYC. I did get to Atlantic City though.......that was an interesting episode. I eventually ended up back in NYC, and I stayed there until time to fly home. That was my chance to go see rural America, and I blew it.
Yes, there are quite a few opportunities for road trips; that is certain. I have been around to know enough that its a unique open border world. Its always difficult to find the local experience that would also be of interest to the traveler for long anyway. I thought Raton New Mexico was charming enough ,but for the feeling I was to be mauled by everyone's dogs.
The Midwest is so familiar I might be blind to some of it charms. My favorite is Saugatuck Michigan. The lake beach is extraordinary. However in my travels I preferred Sonoma to Napa and the Umpqua valley more than the Columbia. That is to say I prefer nature more than urban culture. I did not last long in a Sante Fe art gallery, and preferred the petrified forest and the old Spanish mission. However I must say I probably would not last long at the social hub restaurant and casino in Butte Montana either, nor the Chinese-American restaurant in that Oregonian logging town.
However if you get the chance, a drive along the San Juan scenic byway is worthy for any traveler.
The article you cited in your original post supplies the reason, Dave. Seriously. Like I said, that attitude seems to be rampant here on C-D as I browse the threads, even my local city threads that brought me here in the first place.
They're the people who elected Trump. They LOVE the rich because being poor means you did something to deserve it. They also love him because he actually IS cruel and inhuman. He personifies the things they believe are important: Money (preferably ill gotten), cruelty, braggadocio, meanness to the less fortunate, mocking the disabled, stealing from veterans and disrespecting them (remember, they're losers because they were captured, as PP explains it himself), absolutely visceral hatred for "others," -- in today's world, brown people and Muslims -- and so on.
The ONLY thing that matters to them is being in power, having power over others and expressing that power to hurt the people they believe are "losers."
I didn't think I was reading the post correctly, and read it a couple of times. The poster seemed to be saying the man who died for lack of insulin deserved it. I thought I must be reading it wrong.
Insulin is a common drug, and I find it hard to understand anyone dying for lack of it. I don't know much about diabetics here in England, but I know they will get the drug from the NHS.
Before anyone has a go at me, I know drugs aren't free, and neither is hospital treatment. But, we all pay for the NHS from our taxes, and are glad to do so. It is a very important organisation, and part of the glue holding our society together.
How much does the insulin actually cost? Is it different, depending where you live? Diabetics here get their insulin free of charge. I have no idea if it actually costs much to make.
The cost of insulin depends on the brand/type. Lantus and Levemir are the long acting, new and improved insulins, and they run between $300-400 per month. But Novolin N costs $25 at WalMart. Older, and requires 2 shots per day vs 1 of Lantus/Levemir, but substantially cheaper. Given dosages and all, Novolin N would cost the average diabetic just under $50 per month.
Quote:
Originally Posted by English Dave
Are you saying it's his own fault dying for lack of a common drug like insulin? I'm asking so I can understand your thinking on a matter like this.
I am saying that for whatever reason, Boyle did not know that Novolin N costs $25 at WalMart, and that a month's supply is actually a bit less than $50, and with the $700 he did raise on GoFundMe, he had money enough for ~14 months of Novolin N.
$50 per month is about what it takes to manage diabetes with Novolin N. For whatever reason, the $700 that Boyle did receive was not sufficient, which I find questionable given that $700 buys ~14-15 months worth of insulin. He was also apparently unaware of NeedyMeds and other orgs that find low/no cost solutions for people in dire financial shape who also require such meds.
The author of the OP article provides no context for that story, which in fairness makes sense, since there is not one story about Boyle where any context on him, drug prices, the availability of much cheaper insulin than claimed, etc is provided.
And yes, I am in part saying that if you are a type 1 diabetic who requires insulin to live trough the next day, then insulin, pricing, comparison shopping, knowing all your financial options, finding orgs like NeedyMeds, etc are all pretty much the most important activity you have in any given day, given that the drug is required for you to continue breathing. Boyle apparently knew none of these things at age 26, and according to the OP article, this is the fault of the US, the American people, and our medical system for not rushing to Boyle's aid with free insulin...that he could have procured for free had he done half as much online work as starting a GoFundMe.
That's not cruelty, or apathy, or me being mean. If there are several avenues to far cheaper, even free, management of Type 1 Diabetes, and the afflicted take no effort to learn what/where those avenues are, and they die from a disease that could have easily been managed were they not willfully ignorant.... why again is that the fault of America? In UHC countries, the free insulin would have to be obtained by the afflicted, correct? If they simply did not know where to get their free insulin and never asked, and then died, should I indict that entire system for cruelty because that nation's people didn't walk a grown adult by the hand to the solution to their problem? Or do UHC countries have some army of delivery people who spend 24/7/365 making sure everyone has what they need, when they need it, with exactly no input effort from the afflicted?
Boyle had money and time enough to cover more than a year of insulin management. There are 132 WalMarts in Arkansas. He had close access to at leas one of them. He needed $50 to get through any given month. He got $700 from GoFundMe and the claim is he still couldn't afford the medicine? But this is demonstrably false. So what am I supposed to think, once I view all the facts, all the context and know what I know about insulin prices and ways to get it cheaper or free?
Is it cruel for me to consider all the facts of an individual example prior to condemning an en entire nation of people for something none of them had anything to do with?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by English Dave
Yeah. I just had no idea where I was. A map would have helped me for sure....... I just hoped the bus would stop somewhere like that. It didn't.......
I didn't realise this was the only chance I would get to do this in my life. Every other visit after that was just to NYC and Las Vegas. Judy is willing to ride the subway, so we have been down to Coney Island, and Queens.
But she has no intention of going to Iowa. "What's there David? "Errm middle Americans. Open spaces...." "I'll tell you what's there David. Corn. Lots of it. I don't want to go see fields of corn......."
Can your wife do an afternoon in a casino by herself? Would she do rural if it wasn't just corn fields?
Before anyone has a go at me, I know drugs aren't free, and neither is hospital treatment. But, we all pay for the NHS from our taxes, and are glad to do so. It is a very important organisation, and part of the glue holding our society together.
But that’s socialism. Socialism is evil. Socialists eat babies and hate Jesus.
The cost of insulin depends on the brand/type. Lantus and Levemir are the long acting, new and improved insulins, and they run between $300-400 per month. But Novolin N costs $25 at WalMart. Older, and requires 2 shots per day vs 1 of Lantus/Levemir, but substantially cheaper. Given dosages and all, Novolin N would cost the average diabetic just under $50 per month.
I am saying that for whatever reason, Boyle did not know that Novolin N costs $25 at WalMart, and that a month's supply is actually a bit less than $50, and with the $700 he did raise on GoFundMe, he had money enough for ~14 months of Novolin N.
$50 per month is about what it takes to manage diabetes with Novolin N. For whatever reason, the $700 that Boyle did receive was not sufficient, which I find questionable given that $700 buys ~14-15 months worth of insulin. He was also apparently unaware of NeedyMeds and other orgs that find low/no cost solutions for people in dire financial shape who also require such meds.
The author of the OP article provides no context for that story, which in fairness makes sense, since there is not one story about Boyle where any context on him, drug prices, the availability of much cheaper insulin than claimed, etc is provided.
And yes, I am in part saying that if you are a type 1 diabetic who requires insulin to live trough the next day, then insulin, pricing, comparison shopping, knowing all your financial options, finding orgs like NeedyMeds, etc are all pretty much the most important activity you have in any given day, given that the drug is required for you to continue breathing. Boyle apparently knew none of these things at age 26, and according to the OP article, this is the fault of the US, the American people, and our medical system for not rushing to Boyle's aid with free insulin...that he could have procured for free had he done half as much online work as starting a GoFundMe.
That's not cruelty, or apathy, or me being mean. If there are several avenues to far cheaper, even free, management of Type 1 Diabetes, and the afflicted take no effort to learn what/where those avenues are, and they die from a disease that could have easily been managed were they not willfully ignorant.... why again is that the fault of America? In UHC countries, the free insulin would have to be obtained by the afflicted, correct? If they simply did not know where to get their free insulin and never asked, and then died, should I indict that entire system for cruelty because that nation's people didn't walk a grown adult by the hand to the solution to their problem? Or do UHC countries have some army of delivery people who spend 24/7/365 making sure everyone has what they need, when they need it, with exactly no input effort from the afflicted?
Boyle had money and time enough to cover more than a year of insulin management. There are 132 WalMarts in Arkansas. He had close access to at leas one of them. He needed $50 to get through any given month. He got $700 from GoFundMe and the claim is he still couldn't afford the medicine? But this is demonstrably false. So what am I supposed to think, once I view all the facts, all the context and know what I know about insulin prices and ways to get it cheaper or free?
Is it cruel for me to consider all the facts of an individual example prior to condemning an en entire nation of people for something none of them had anything to do with?
I condemn no one. I just wanted to understand your thinking. I don't understand why this man died, if he could have saved himself, buying insulin from Wal-Mart. It doesn't make sense.
As a diabetic, he must have known how to buy cheap insulin. I do understand what you say about him helping himself. There must be more to this, because die he did.
I didn't think I was reading the post correctly, and read it a couple of times. The poster seemed to be saying the man who died for lack of insulin deserved it. I thought I must be reading it wrong.
I never said he deserved it. I said his death makes no sense given that a month of Novolin N costs $50, and just GoFundMe alone provided him with $700. Just from that, paying retail at WalMart, he had 14 months worth of insulin, had he gone and purchased it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by English Dave
Insulin is a common drug, and I find it hard to understand anyone dying for lack of it. I don't know much about diabetics here in England, but I know they will get the drug from the NHS.
Does the NHS deliver it to the patient regardless of the input effort of the patient? As in, does the NHS just automatically know who every type 1 and severe type 2 diabetic in all the land is, and they have delivery people sending out the free stuff to make sure that even if the patients are 100% totally ignorant of the drug they need and where to go get it, they have it delivered right to their door, without fail? Nobody in England needs t eve contact NHS for meds? The NHS is omniscient and just makes all the free stuff appear in every post slot?
Quote:
Originally Posted by English Dave
Before anyone has a go at me, I know drugs aren't free, and neither is hospital treatment. But, we all pay for the NHS from our taxes, and are glad to do so. It is a very important organisation, and part of the glue holding our society together.
And Boyle could have paid for more than a year's worth of insulin from just the $700 he got on GoFundMe, and various other orgs could have probably taken that $700 and turned it into like 2-3 years. He simply didn't.
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I just hoped the bus would stop somewhere like that. It didn't.......