With the current debate about health care and as a PWD+1, I am curious about the numbers related to other living with diabetes. With us taking up billions of dollars paid for care, prevention and other items, I was curious if anyone had any insight on how much insurance companies paid for boxes of test strips. I know that they don’t pay retail but I would wonder if it is cheaper than what others are paying for Walmart’s Reli-On brand strips.
I do have experience with this. A former friend and type 1 used to have a friend who's parent worked for a company that manufactured strips. He used to get her boxes of strips at cost. One day, she says, "Give me $20 and I'll give you four boxes." Feeling like she robbed someone I replied, "So he gets them at work for $5."
"Yes."
Sadly after college we lost touch. But with the MSRP on most boxes of strips in the $50-60 range (yes, Reli-on and other strips are cheaper), the markup on these seems extra-ordinarily excessive. My odd solution... let the ADA or the JDRF buy one of the smaller strip companies and sell them for cost plus 10-20%. More competition is good and we could bring down the health care financial burden.