No one should die from rationing prescription drugs they need to live.
And if you get to the point where you’re having a seizure or going into insulin shock, you should go to the emergency room.
That’s what state Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, said she meant in public comments this week that caused outcry from some, who took her comments as insensitive and suggesting that ER visits were somehow Benson’s policy solution to skyrocketing drug costs.
That’s not what she meant, Benson said Wednesday.
“I didn’t phrase it well, and it’s a lesson that we all probably should learn from social media,” Benson told the Pioneer Press on Thursday afternoon, as criticism that had begun the evening before continued, injecting emotional adjectives into an already complex debate among lawmakers over how best to deal with the problem of high drug costs.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, put out a news release calling Benson’s comments “another callous and clueless health care remark from a Minnesota Republican.”
HOW THIS CAME UP
At the Capitol, a bevy of proposals have been made for how to tackle the rising cost of prescription drugs, from arthritis medicine to insulin, which many diabetics need to live. Both Democrats and Republicans think drug companies are to blame for jacking up prices, but they disagree on how to address it.
The otherwise wonkish issues have taken on passion because of the tragic story of Alec Smith, a 26-year-old from Minneapolis who died after rationing his insulin, which was costing him $1,300 a month. His story has gone viral, prompting Snopes.com to investigate it to back up its veracity. The Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act would create a state fund that would pay for a temporary supply of “emergency prescription refills” when diabetics have an established need for the drug but can’t pay for it. Note the uses of the word “emergency” there. It suggests more of an urgent situation than a medical emergency.
Benson chairs the Senate Health and Human Services committee that was weighing a number of the proposals Tuesday afternoon. She doesn’t support the bill named after Smith because she believes it’s not a systemic solution to the larger problem. “What about seizure medications?” she asked, suggesting that a fix for insulin alone isn’t wide-ranging enough.
WHAT SHE SAID
Benson told reporters afterward that those in need of insulin in an emergency should “please go to an emergency room.”
Then on Facebook, in response to a post by a woman who was urging support for the insulin bill, Benson wrote this:
“Thank you for commenting. If you are in need of emergency insulin, you can go to an emergency room. If you have high deductible insurance, the major insulin manufacturers have coupons to help with co-pays.” She went on to espouse a different bill that aims to tackle the problem a different way, a bill that would require price transparency and discounts and steeply discounted coupons, which many are unaware exist, to be disclosed to consumers when they go to fill their prescriptions.
Benson was criticized by the DFL’s Martin as “recommending costly and time-consuming Emergency Room visits instead holding price-gouging pharmaceutical companies responsible.”
Benson said that’s largely a misunderstanding of what she meant by “emergency.”
WHAT SHE MEANT
“Nobody should die in Minnesota because they don’t have access to this medication,” she said, adding that once in an emergency room, a patient is close to people who can provide resources to enroll in public-assistance programs or drug-discount programs.
“It shouldn’t be the long-term solution, but if it’s what you need to get you medically stable and to take the next steps, so you can get a steady, affordable insulin supply. … I don’t want anyone facing a health care crisis to stay home and wait it out like this young man who was rationing his insulin.”
That’s a position also held by several medical experts contacted for this story.
Dr. Douglas Wood, president of the Minnesota Medical Association and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, noted that ERs are among the most expensive way to get medical care. “It’d be much … less expensive to find another solution to acquire the … supply of insulin,” he said.
That, Benson said, she agrees with.