American Forced To Pay $807 For 'One Thing That Kept Them Alive'
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: @NHSMillion/Twitter/Alamy
NHS grassroots campaign, NHS Million, has revealed the extortionate medical bill of a person living in the United States.
Taking to Twitter, the account – which is described as a 'super team of a million people who are grateful for NHS staff and happy to support them' – shared an image of a Walgreens bill from Kannapolis, totalling $807.96.
Alongside the receipt, the photograph showed how the person only received two boxes of prescription medicine for such a vast amount of money.
NHS Million noted how the receipt showed the amount a person had to pay to receive their insulin. Insulin is most commonly used by those diagnosed with Diabetes. It is a vital hormone which those with the condition are unable to survive without.
In revealing the shocking price some have to pay in the US to simply stay alive, the NHS Million took the opportunity to thank the National Healthcare System.
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The caption read: 'This person had to spend $807.96 for the one thing that kept them alive – insulin.
'Thank goodness for our NHS – we must never take it for granted.'
Comments have since rained in to support the NHS and the free medical care it offers to millions of people in the UK, alongside other users detailing similar medical expenses they have incurred as a result of living in America.
Cathy Speer shared her parallel experience of being charged '$200 [for] a vial of novalog'.
She said: 'Yup I pay $200 a vial of Novalog and I get 3 vials at a time. Then I pay $150 for my Basaglar pens at 3 boxes each. After insurance. Why im always broke [...] Then I have to pay for all the syringes and pen needles. Also my Libre sensors and other medications too. It's expensive.'
Another user who receives insulin on the NHS noted: 'Believe me, every time I inject insulin into my body I am extremely grateful to be in the care of the NHS or I'd be dead by now.'
'You and me both. I have up to 15 insulin Injections daily, as I was a type 1 Diabetic.. Without the NHS I would surely be dead and also received Radiotherapy treatment last year, so doubly thankful,' a third commented.
It isn't the first time that the expense of medical care in the US has come under scrutiny.
A NHS doctor took to TikTok to duet with a US healthcare professional to highlight the stark differences.
While the NHS Million's post highlighted the hefty cost of insulin, the TikTok-ing doctors explained how, in the US, an ambulance costs $164 for each mile to the person in need, a hip replacement costs $40,364 and a one-day stay in the ICU costs $8,730.
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