This 24-Year-Old Diabetic Is Saving Lives the Government Won’t

Twenty-four-year-old Madelyn Corwin’s social media feeds feature a few selfies, videos of her insulin pump, and almost always a link to a GoFundMe page. The most current fundraiser is to raise money for a woman named Nicole who lost her diabetic son in 2018 because they couldn’t afford insulin. In other words, Corwin’s pages are not just young people fodder. Her activism is literally saving lives. “I just make a statement and I'll have people message me on Twitter or Instagram and be like, ‘thanks so much for posting about this, my dad died like three years ago,’” she tells co-host Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus episode of The New Abnormal. Corwin works with the organization Mutual Aid to raise awareness for a healthcare crisis most non-Diabetics wouldn’t otherwise know about: the insanely high costs of insulin and the Americans who are dying as a result. “[People] kind of just think like, Oh, like, you know, like Joe wasn't taking care of himself, but in reality, like Joe literally couldn't afford to take care of himself.” Without insurance, insulin (which is mainly distributed in the United States by three major companies) can cost up to $1000. Some states do have cop-pay caps, says Corwin, but she cited research that found they only help up to 27% of people on the drug in each state. “I believe in ‘96 it was like around 20 us dollars,” she says, but that rate has doubled in just the last five years. “But once it started hitting like 2011, 2012, it was like hitting those $200 a vile marks. People were like, okay, well, like something's going on?” Lobbying is a thing, but it hasn’t made much of a dent. Now, they stick to financial crowdsourcing, education and accountability. In the meantime, the #insulinforall community are deciding what the next move is: “I mean, I guess in like a dream world, I want everyone to be able to get insulin for free, but we live in the United States,” says Corwin.

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