Yes he’s running for senator in Texas, but I think his story of how he became a T1 is interesting.
When I was 28 years old, I almost died.
I was running in my first race for the Texas House. I decided to walk the entire length of my district — 25 miles in one day — holding town halls along the way. I wasn’t worried — I hike Big Bend every year!
But about halfway through, I started feeling nauseous and fatigued. I threw up a couple of times on the way, but figured I was just dehydrated. Somehow, I finished.
When I got home, I slept for 36 hours. My family rushed me to the ER, where nurses checked my blood sugar. I was immediately diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I was in diabetic ketoacidosis, which ends in coma and death without insulin.
When I got out of the ICU, I went to Walgreens to pick up my first 30-day supply of insulin. It cost me $684 for a necessary medicine that costs Big Pharma $10 to produce. I didn’t have that kind of money (most Texans don’t, either) — so I put it on my credit card.
This is why so many people with diabetes ration or skip doses. Some of them die because of it.
So when I got elected, I passed bills to cap the price of insulin at $25 a month.
Yup!!! That is similar to my story. Not the race, but the nausea and DKA. BG of 998 in 1986. The difference is that in 1986, my insulin cost less than $20 per vial. Big Pharma hadn’t decided yet that diabetics could be milked for money.
Thank you for posting, @CarlosLuis. I wanna know about this guy.
Don’t let me forget to mention we have a diabetic doctor nominated for FDA comissioner.
28 is pretty old. Is he a MODY? I want to know what species of T1 he is.
I’m guessing he’s Texas born and bred…not an import from DC. He’s been in the State House of Reps for 10 years.
That’s a big deal to the partisans. Texas has had action this season. Dr Potter is from there. Eric Bricker is there. It’s been a source of healthcare uprisings. As a state, it has the nations lowest proportion of it’s population covered by health insurance in the nation.
Excellent
This all looks excellent to me. Hired.
I really like how diabetics are using hard numbers latley.
I think it’s really effective lobbying. It impacts me. $684. ■■■■.
I could do without the marketing slogan, though, James. I don’t think that helps. It’s too woo woo.
Not bad, overall.
I am thinking he’s an autoimmune Type 1. It can happen at any age. I know a couple of adult onset T1s who had almost no honeymoon. Different from others with LADA T1s. MODY monogenic DM is quite rare.
I believe Mary Tyler Moore was around 28 when she developed T1.
Wowweee, what a diagnosis story! That’s pretty dramatic and what a great move to make which must’ve benefitted so many . I find it astonishing and angering that people living now are having to ration a drug that literally keeps them alive - doesn’t make their life better, but is essential to staying alive.
He’s 37. That’s very young for a politician. He’s only been a diabetic for around 10 years. I guess that’s long enough to have accumulated a bunch of knowledge. Hired.
See. This is where everything gets super confusing. I’ve never seen a situation like this before. Typically, no one wants to help diabetics. Now, both parties are competing to help us. They are moving the pieces around on the board to such a degree that it’s just impossible to know how it all plays out. In some ways, it doesn’t matter who wins - elected representatives are gonna help us.
They kinda need a republican to do this so the current party in power gets credit for it. This IS kinda coming down to the states from the executive branch.
State government and the federal governement don’t always like to work together. They fight over who has authority, so this is notable.
In MN, we can’t do this because UHG is located here. But TX is a large state with some financial resources. They might be able to pull something off, with help from the feds. I like it.
We might be able to back you up some after the elections. We’ll see. It gets tricky because Amy Klobuchar is coming home to be govenor. She’s certain to win. She worked on antitrust in the federal senate and she works OK with Trump and the executive branch because she was a long standing senior senator and she knows how to get things done. But the parties need to collaborate more publicly for that, or they need to do it behind closed doors (which is usually what happens). It’s a little tricky. I listened to this podcast the other day in an effort to figure out how this might work out. Why Do Politicians Polarize Policymaking? Not Another Politics Podcast | iHeart
Another example, of particular interest to me, was this doctor - Elizabeth Potter. Fundraiser by Elisabeth Potter : Stand with a Surgeon Facing Retaliation The insurers kicked her out of network when she challenged UnitedHealthGroup for interfering with her medical authority and decision making over patient care. Docs never challenge insurers over medical decision making. Why? Because the insurers essentially destroyed her business and ability to practice medicine with a snap of their fingers by making it so that patients couldn’t use their insurance policies to pay for care in her practice anymore.
That’s one of the examples I cite when I write to DOJ about unfair market practices and market fixing. That happened in TX. Really important.
Ideally, she would sue UHG. But in the world of practical reality, she can’t afford to. They are threatening to sue her. That’s checkmate because even state governments can barley handle a court case with an insurer, let alone a private citizen. Wealthy investor steps in to defend doctor against UnitedHealth - ClearHealthCosts
Texas has been punching above it’s weight for several years now and I expect it to continue to be a real player in upcoming events.
MN is a little unpredictable because it is a center for fighting between political partisans. But if you know what is happening behind closed doors, there is actually a lot of bipartisan consensus. One of our big problems is that UHG is based here, so we are under their thumb in a way that TX is not. Maybe TX will lead on that.
Another headline, TX. This one is sad, @CarlosLuis
. I find it astonishing and angering that people living now are having to ration a drug that literally keeps them alive - doesn’t make their life better, but is essential to staying alive.
We learned how to do it for free. Diabetics are the best!