Insulin Spike and Price Spike: Who Owns Our Lives

 Clayton Yun

Professor Horgan

HST 401

11 February 2026

Insulin Spike and Price Spike: Who Owns Our Lives

I sat quietly in the back seat of the car, watching the border booth lights reflect off the windshield as we pulled up to the U.S. Customs checkpoint. My parents rolled down the window and handed over their passports. The officer asked the usual questions in a bored, mechanical tone. Where we had been, how long we stayed, and what the purpose of the trip was. My parents answered calmly, but I could tell they were waiting for the one question everyone expects.

“Are you bringing anything back with you?”

There was a brief pause before my dad responded.

“Yes,” he said. “Insulin.”

The officer’s expression shifted slightly, not shocked, but suddenly more alert. He asked how much, and my mom explained it was a two-month supply. Then the officer leaned forward a little and asked another question, sharper this time.

“Is it for you?”

“No,” she replied. “It’s for our son, Jack.”

Even though they were talking about me, I stayed silent in the back seat, listening as if I was not there. The officer asked how much it cost, and my dad answered, “Seventy-five dollars.” The number felt unreal, not because it was expensive, but because it was so cheap compared to what insulin costs back home. I remember thinking how absurd it was that my parents had to explain a life-saving medication to a border officer like it was suspicious. The officer nodded, handed the passports back, and waved us through with a simple, indifferent phrase.

“Welcome back to the United States.”

The original patent for insulin was sold for a symbolic amount of one dollar to the University of Toronto. Since then, there have been new iterations of making insulin that have been patented, and now the average price of a vial of insulin in the US is around $200. Although insurance can lower this cost to $0 in some cases, it is still very expensive to afford health can and as policies and regulations change, the price is subject to change as well. 

Insulin prices in the United States are also drastically higher when compared to the rest of the world. According to an international price comparison report, the average gross manufacturer price for a standard unit of insulin in 2018 was more than ten times higher in the U.S. than in a sample of 32 foreign countries. The report found that the average price in the United States was $98.70, compared to only $8.81 in non-U.S. OECD countries. Additionally, when comparing the mix of insulin most commonly used in the U.S., American prices were still 8.1 times higher than the combined prices paid in all other OECD nations. This demonstrates that the high cost of insulin in the United States is not a global issue, but rather a result of how the U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical pricing system operates.

Currently, there are 3 major corporations: Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi that have an oligopoly in the market of pharmaceuticals and especially insulin making it quite difficult for other companies to come in and produce insulin to lower prices for the people who need it.

In addition, these corporations are heavily invested in by investment institutions suchas Vanguard, Blackrock, and Bank of America, who collectively share a majority in these pharmaceutical companies. However, it simply does not end there; they also own a significant amount of shares in companies that own hospitals. For example, HCA Healthcare Inc. is the largest health system in the USA in terms of the number of hospitals, net patient revenue, and bed count, and is heavily invested in by investment institutions like Vanguard, Blackrock, and JP Morgan Chase CO which are all companies that invest for a profit. HCA Health, while being the largest health system company, is a for-profit company alongside many others like it. But that's not all either; these same companies have major shares in health insurance companies. UnitedHealth Group and Elevance Health are the USA’s two largest health insurance companies and also are invested into by Blackrock, Vanguard,  JP Morgan, and other investment firms.

If the companies we trust to make our medicine, build and support the hospitals we go to, and sell us insurance for when we get sick and need help financially are all owned by the same for-profit companies that invest expecting returns, how can we trust them?

All of these institutions that are in the business of our health should prioritize patient health. From providing the best medical care and ensuring fair and ethical decision-making to advancing medicine and research honestly, these companies and people in this industry should be putting patients and the betterment of society as their primary goals. But as we see countless times, let money, power, and influence, and expanding market share become their primary focus and bias them. 

The United States healthcare system fails to provide affordable access to one of the most essential medicines in modern history. Insulin is not optional, and its cost should never force families into desperation. However, because pharmaceutical corporations, insurance companies, and other healthcare institutions operate under profit-driven incentives, patients often become financial burdens rather than individuals in need of care. My friend Jack shouldn’t have to drive to Canada to afford insulin just to survive, but it shows that other countries have made insulin affordable. The U.S. system does not fail because it cannot provide cheaper insulin; it fails because it chooses not to. If change does not happen, more Americans will continue to suffer unnecessarily in a system that values profit more than life.

Work Cited

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