Courtesy of the “Wayback Machine“, I bring you the early entries I made in my online diabetes journal. This was back before Blogger made things easy, and I had to write the entries in HTML. The journal is no longer available, but thanks to the wonderful tools available on the internet, I was able to find much of my old stuff. I’d like to share one of the old entries with you.
For the record, I don’t necessarily feel this way anymore. I think I have grown to the conclusion that it is just pretty darn complicated, and expensive to figure out. Although, sometimes you have to wonder…
03 Dec 2000
I have been trying to figure out *exactly* what has been bothering me so much lately. I feel it has a lot to do with the insurance industry. They make me jump through so many hoops, just to get the supplies I need to take care of myself. Each and every hoop they make me jump through bothers me at a very deep level.
So much of this stuff is about money, rather than about helping those that need help. It is really disturbing. Did you know that there are blood glucose meters in the not too distant future that will be able to actually determine your blood glucose *without* poking your finger?!
The pictures I saw showed pretty big devices, that you stick your finger into, and via some sort of infrared or something, it tests your blood sugar. No sticks, no finger pricks – no blood!! I mean, wow!! Something like this would be great!!!
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will ever come to market. You know why? Because there is no continuous income for the people that would market it. You would buy the machine, maybe some batteries, but that would be about it. There would be no steady income from the test strips – because there are none!! If no one will make a substantial amount of money off these things, they probably will not ever come out. Matter of fact, the people that are making all the money off test strips would fight pretty hard *against* it!
Makes you wonder about a cure. Even if someone did find a cure, do you think it would actually ever “hit the market”? Diabetes makes about $98 billion dollars per year all things combined. Do you think the companies making that kind of money will let it just vanish – just because some brilliant scientist discovered a cure?? The cure would have to make it’s way up the FDA’s approval ladder, where all these rich companies would be lobbying against it – looking to undercut it – maybe even sabotage it…
These people do not care about us. They just want their money.
My anger at the insurance industry (at least that’s what I *think* I’m angry at…) is spilling over into the other areas of my diabetes care picture. I go to my doctor appointments already in a crappy/angry mood . That can’t help matters at all.
