This sounds like an issue with medical/financial literacy or possibly mental illness, which are also serious. The self-pay price is discounted and can get really low with the manufacturer coupons/rebates or the one pharmacy chains scan for you if you’re uninsured. Generics are available; they are not as error-proof as, e.g., Tresiba, but they would have saved his life. Switching from pens to vials saves money.

Please be kind if you reply; I am diabetic and have spent time trying to save money on a really high prescription copay. I’ve caught myself doing what this person did, rationing or going without when there were ways to get medicine. Thankfully I didn’t live alone and someone snapped me out of that thinking. I would like to see the FDA stop the stair-step method to keep generics from being widely prescribed but if you’re waiting for that, please don’t — there are temporary solutions in the meantime.