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By Bram Sable-Smith, Side Effects Public Media
When Michelle Fenner signed up to run this year’s Los Angeles Marathon, it got her thinking: Tijuana, Mexico, is only a 2½-hour drive from L.A. Why not take a trip across the border and buy some insulin for her son?
“It’s so easy to just go across the border,” mused Fenner.
This idea had been in the back of Fenner’s mind for a while. Her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes nine years ago, meaning he needs daily injections of insulin to live. The list price of the modern generation of insulin has skyrocketed since his diagnosis. On one trip to the pharmacy last year, Fenner was told that a three-month supply of insulin would cost her $3,700.
That same supply would cost only about $600 in Mexico.
So, when she booked her trip to Los Angeles, Fenner said, “I decided we need to update our passports and go and get more insulin.”
Fenner is not the only one thinking like this. The U.S. government estimates that close to 1 million people in California alone cross to Mexico annually for healthcare, including to buy prescription drugs. And between 150,000 and 320,000 Americans list healthcare as a reason for traveling abroad each year. Cost savings is the most commonly cited reason.
‘Right to shop’ legislation
In Utah last year, the Public Employee Health Plan took this idea to a new level with its voluntary Pharmacy Tourism Program. For certain PEHP members who use any of 13 costly prescription medications—including the popular arthritis drug Humira—the insurer will foot the bill to fly the patient and a companion to San Diego, then drive them to a hospital in Tijuana, Mexico,...