The Costs of Graduate School and Healthcare

On January 20, Mat Johnson posted on Twitter about his insulin falling out of the refrigerator and his kid picking it up and placing it in the freezer, thus ruining it. Insurance would not replace the insulin, which costs $800, and Johnson pointed out that luckily he has enough to cover it. However, if he could not cover it, he may actually die, as one of his former students did, from not having access to the insulin he needs. Johnson followed this tweet up with another one about his student, Shane Patrick Doyle and the fact that Snopes even posted about Doyle’s story because so many people didn’t believe it.

Doyle started a GoFundMe page in February 2017 to help him raise money for a month’s supply of insulin. A few weeks after posting on the campaign, Doyle passed away, on March 18, from diabetic ketoacidosis. For two weeks, Doyle was $50 short of reaching his goal on GoFundMe to purchase a month’s supply of insulin. When one vial of insulin costs about $275 and most people need multiple vials per month, a person without insurance could pay anywhere from $275 to over $800 a month for insulin.