34 million Americans suffer from diabetes. How do drug monopolies keep raising prices? Follow the blood money.
President Biden and Bernie Sanders have proposed cutting prescription drug prices. Connect the dots for yourself with this infographic or this interactive map. How many people suffer from diabetes where you live? How do corporations get away with raising drug prices while regular American die from being unable to afford their medication? The donations that big pharma gives Republicans to block drug price cuts and keep their monopolies?
True or False? (Answers below)
- Insulin prices in the United States have tripled over the past decade?
- It costs America over $320 billion every year for diagnosed diabetes?
- Lilly is under investigation for overcharging for insulin?
- The CEO of Eli Lilly is worth over $100 million?
- Eli Lilly has donated to both Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senate Committee?
- Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) got over $290,000 in pharma lobby donations and blocked measures to cut drug prices?
Soaring prescription drug prices
"The price per standard unit across all insulins in the U.S. was $98.70 compared to just $12.00 across the border in Canada and less than $10 in France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Turkey. An estimated 7 million people in the U.S. use insulin but the soaring prices are putting the life-saving drug out of reach of countless Americans who depend on it. There are two primary reasons for the high price. The first one is that pharmaceutical manufacturers have the power to set their own prices and raise them without any limits while the second one is that there is a lack of competition in the U.S. insulin market." - IBI Times
Corporate greed run amok
"The estimated Net Worth of David A Ricks is at least $128 Million dollars as of 1 February 2022. Mr. Ricks owns over 56,205 units of Lilly(Eli) & Co stock worth over $106,024,776 and over the last 10 years he sold LLY stock worth over $381,989. In addition, he makes $21,283,200 as Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer at Lilly(Eli) & Co." - WallMine
Make it actionable
The map of diabetics is also available as a link. The Splash Screen has a link that directs readers to the infographic for details or to proceed to the map and see how many people suffer from diabetes in their county and how they can contact their senator to demand price cuts.
Designing an infographic
People are smart. Make it easy for them to connect the dots and see what's really happening. Infographics help by combining information from different sources. People can search the data quickly and easily to see how a political decision impacts their lives. And they can follow the money to see who is making money from their suffering.
- Keep it simple. Only include information that is relevant to your message. Avoid the temptation of overloading it with too many facts.
- Make it visually appealing. We used the free Kumu app to create this infographic.
- Make it personal. Let people find out how the decision impacts the area where they live. We used ArcGIS Online to create a searchable map of the number of diabetic patients per county.
- Make it easy to read. Kumu automatically adjusts the infographic to the phone, tablet or laptop being used.
- Update the infographic with new facts. Kumu lets you revise the content without affecting the URL you have shared.
- Make it engaging. This infographic uses cartoons licensed from Political Cartoons.
- Make it easy to share on social media with a link or embed in a website such as with this code. < iframe src="https://embed.kumu.io/dd0e9da0f4e90aa099569b95864d1672" width="940" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe>
- Include a call to action. The map includes the phone number and email of every senator so people can let them know directly about them blocking drug price cuts.
TakeAway: Call out Drug Monopolists and big pharma Republicans who profit from high drug prices while regular Americans die because they cannot afford their medication.
Deepak
DemLabs
Answers to all the questions above are unfortunately true.
