The beggar refused my dollar today

[rodheadlee]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Unless we know the numbers or percentages of the “they” in comparison to the greater panhandling community, that isn’t a very useful report IMO.  I have no doubt there are abusers of the system, but a few abusing and most struggling is very different from most abusing and a few struggling and a news report should offer what that percentage likely is (whether it did or not is not indicated in your comment).

It was a long time ago I could not quote the stats in it.

Edited January 13, 2022 by rodheadlee

[Calm]

Just now, rodheadlee said:

It was a long time ago I could not quote the stats in it.

No problem.  Like I said I have no doubt there are scammers, just think before making judgments about the communities they are in, we should find out how prevalent they are…after all, there are conmen among construction workers, but it would be insulting to workers like you for a news agency to make a report on scam artists in the construction business without pointing out that not everyone is a scammer and ways to find the decent ones or reach the truly needy for the poor.

[The Nehor]

Just now, rodheadlee said:

Back around 1992 when I was living in Las Vegas a news reporter went Undercover being a panhandler and they were knocking down two to three hundred bucks a day in about 4 to 5 hours and then heading to the casinos.

Yeah, and that story stuck with you. I think we all heard those stories. We saw it on TV or someone told us the story they read or whatever. I once did a bit of digging trying to verify this happening and couldn’t find anything confirmable.

Others have also tried: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-panhandlers-make-50-an-hour/

I am more cynical now. I don’t trust the reports of hobos with mansions and Ferraris. The main reason I don’t trust them is if it were that easy to convert cash into a (taxless) luxury wealth lifestyle criminals wouldn’t need to launder money. About a decade ago I read about a hobo who was pulling in a million in a year and teaching classes on panhandling. Really? I learned a long time ago that if you have found the secret to making wealth under the radar the absolute DUMBEST thing you can do is teach it to others and oversaturate the market. The people offering classes on becoming successful are generally not successful. If they were successful they wouldn’t be teaching classes on it. The whole thing just seems like a smoke and mirrors thing designed to make people hate and detest the poor more than they already do. It is frankly disgusting.

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

The largely mythical wealthy panhandler is a classic.

It's also a classic strawman.  Nobody was talking about wealthy panhandlers until you brought it up.  Certainly it's possible to be driving around in a Mercedes and still be broke.  You can scam your way into a large daily income just by lying about your situation, and still be broke.  You and your cardboard sign can pull in $3-500 in handouts a day and then drink and gamble it away, and still be broke and homeless.  

 

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t particularly care if it goes to a substance abuse problem.

Yeah, I can respect the honest guy with the "bud me" sign, and I don't have a problem with you, if you want to help needy folk get their booze/drugs/women/whatever.  It's just not appealing for me personally, considering how to best use my charitable buck, to support such things. 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by LoudmouthMormon

[LoudmouthMormon]

Fun story: My wife and I know a full-time homeless lady.  She lives in her van with her two chickens.  We'll occasionally find a way to help her out here and there.  (Well, my wife finds a way, I'm basically there as mute muscle.)  She has some obvious unmedicated issues, traumas, and unresolved PTSD keeping her from stability and jobs and homes and whatnot.  Her chickens are her stability.  She is inches away from falling through all of society's cracks and disappearing forever.  She'll go full-Q-anon and disappear for a few months, then pop up on Facebook asking for help.  The requested help is often sort of odd - last time, she was losing a storage unit, and she wanted to make sure her stuff found a good home.  We took it all, have been getting rid of the junk, and are holding on to the 'good stuff' in case she was gifting it during a manic episode and ends up wanting it back.  I think most of the good comes from plain old friendly nonjudgmental human contact.  Wife spent a friendly hour with her talking about all her grand plans. 

Whenever we meet, it's at some neutral location.  Do not try this at home, kids, unless you are streetwise like my wife.

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

It's also a classic strawman.  Nobody was talking about wealthy panhandlers until you brought it up.  Certainly it's possible to be driving around in a Mercedes and still be broke.  You can scam your way into a large daily income just by lying about your situation, and still be broke.  You and your cardboard sign can pull in $3-500 in handouts a day and then drink and gamble it away, and still be broke and homeless.  

Actually smac put an image about a panhandler driving a Mercedes Benz. I didn’t start the fire. I just had a gas can.

CFR on pulling in three to five hundred a day consistently.

4 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Yeah, I can respect the honest guy with the "bud me" sign, and I don't have a problem with you, if you want to help needy folk get their booze/drugs/women/whatever.  It's just not appealing for me personally, considering how to best use my charitable buck, to support such things. 

I gave them money. What they do with it is up to them. I don’t debgrudge them desperately turning to something to numb or escape pain. I also don’t assume responsibility for what they do with it. I would find it demeaningly patronizing to have someone scrutinize what I do with money given to me so why should I do it to them? To make sure they do the right thing? Yuck.

[LoudmouthMormon]

21 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Actually smac put an image about a panhandler driving a Mercedes Benz. I didn’t start the fire. I just had a gas can.

Again: Nobody was talking about wealthy panhandlers until you brought it up.  Again: Certainly it's possible to be driving around in a Mercedes and still be broke.  Perhaps you assumed that Smac believes (or perhaps you just believe personally), that anyone with a Mercedes must be wealthy?  I'm not assuming anything, just trying to guess at a reason why you are associating Mercedes with wealth in the panhandling population.

 

Me: "You and your cardboard sign can pull in $3-500 in handouts a day and then drink and gamble it away, and still be broke and homeless."
You: "CFR on pulling in three to five hundred a day consistently." (underline mine)

Again, a strawman.   If you want reports of the occasional $3-500 days, a google search on "panhandlers 500 a day" returns 748,000 results.  An awful lot of anecdotes there for you to click on to your heart's content.

But just for transparencies sake - I believe there are close to zero wealthy panhandlers.  If there are wealthy homeless folk, it's usually due to choice or mental illness, and they may or may not panhandle.  Wealthy homeless folk who are heroin addicts don't stay wealthy.  

Edited January 13, 2022 by LoudmouthMormon

[The Nehor]

Just now, LoudmouthMormon said:

Again: Nobody was talking about wealthy panhandlers until you brought it up.  Again: Certainly it's possible to be driving around in a Mercedes and still be broke.  Sounds like you assumed that Smac believes (or perhaps you just believe personally), that anyone with a Mercedes must be wealthy.  

 

Me: "You and your cardboard sign can pull in $3-500 in handouts a day and then drink and gamble it away, and still be broke and homeless."
You: "CFR on pulling in three to five hundred a day consistently." (underline mine)

Again, a strawman.   If you want reports of the occasional $3-500 days, a google search on "panhandlers 500 a day" returns 748,000 results.  An awful lot of anecdotes there for you to click on to your heart's content.

But just for transparencies sake - I believe there are close to zero wealthy panhandlers.  If there are wealthy homeless folk, it's usually due to choice or mental illness, and they may or may not panhandle.  Wealthy homeless folk who are heroin addicts don't stay wealthy.  

So we are going with images of something do not count as bringing it up and cannot be considered part of the conversation?

Okay. This should be fun.

I know I can get lots of results if I google the term. Most are unsubstantiated anecdotes on the internet which means you can assume they are lying. I can also get lots of results googling “perpetual motion machine” but I still haven’t found out and the quantity of claims that one exists and people talking about it doesn’t make it more likely there is a real one.

This is an annoying conversation. The insinuation shows up that wealthy panhandlers are a thing. I contest the idea. You push back against it while also saying I am largely right. Why did you feel the need to do that while chiding me for going off on a tangent?

Seems odd.

No way to know why I suppose.

[Rain]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

I have a friend who has recently gone out of her way to take homemade food to the homeless around the downtown SLC area.  She has started a group that does it with her (very grassroots, only being going for a handful of months so far).  She has said in the past that they sometimes get a lot of pushback from the people who live on or near the homeless camps when they are out providing food.  They don't want the homeless people to be encouraged to stay in the area because they are creating a lot of problems.  

She can see both sides of the issue.  She's also said that the homeless that they get have said how they don't like the typical help that is offered to them, through food banks and church stuff.  

I know the city of Phoenix really encourages people not to give to beggars.  They find that lots of blankets etc end up in big trash piles that the city then has to clean up.  It said that beggars tend to be in areas where they are not close to shelters etc so giving to them encourages them to be away from where they can most get help.

[Rain]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t particularly care if it goes to a substance abuse problem.

I very much care because I didn't want my brother being the recipient.

He hated the idea of begging though.  It really bothered him.  He loved to work hard, but the addictions often called to him more convincingly.  

[Kenngo1969]

14 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

If it's a cold morning, we've taken to asking them if they would like a hot pie or a hot chocolate.

Don't see them in the warmer months.

Meh.  Your winter is our summer, and vice-versa, so perhaps they split their time between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?    

[Stargazer]

On 1/13/2022 at 1:02 AM, The Nehor said:

The largely mythical wealthy panhandler is a classic. There are no hard numbers on panhandling profits but I question the motives of those trying to convince me that they many are wealthy. It seems like an attempt to marginalize the impoverished. It goes with the common bit about the poor having refrigerators and televisions and computers at home.

The refrigerator one is especially disgusting. It is incredibly difficult to make food for a family if you can’t keep things cold meaning you most likely have to go with the more expensive alternative of cheap fast food. They expect the impoverished to be penny wise and pound foolish to fit into their mold of some ideal ****ensian poor person.

There is also a kind of weird envy of the impoverished. The idea that they are making out like bandits is a slick piece of propaganda. I can see why some segments of society want to push that narrative. If you keep everyone thinking the poor are robbing them blind it probably makes it easier for other people to rob them blind.

Largely mythical? They don't exist? I don't think you can say that. Maybe most panhandlers, or even the vast majority, aren't wealthy from their panhandling, but there are many who do it for years, and if they aren't making at least a minimal living from it, why do they keep it up.

In my hometown in Washington state, there is this one guy, he might be well past retirement age by now, who has been panhandling for literally 20+ years. I don't know if he's mythically wealthy or not, but he was stationed near one of the Fred Meyer stores every day that I drove past on the way to work. My wife saw him frequently when she went shopping. At some point about 8 years ago he moved to a different area, but not far from the Home Depot I used to buy materials from, and then I saw him at least twice a week. That was apparently his "job," and if he weren't successful at feeding and sheltering himself, then why was he still there? It occurred to me more than once that I might go on stakeout just for the fun of it and see where he went after his "shift", but I never did, because, heck, why? He has every right to stand there and solicit donations -- he's not stealing; so it's an honest job, a business even. When I went for a visit back Stateside in July I saw that he was still working that corner. Kind of made me feel good, actually. I hope he's doing well.

And he's not the only one. There's another one who stands everyday at another intersection not far from the previous guy. Physically he resembles one of my stepsons, and the first time I saw him I wondered "What is Burt doing there?" but it wasn't him. He is no older than 35, I think, and seems to be in good physical condition. He isn't as steady in that spot, so perhaps he isn't doing as well as the other guy.

 

[mfbukowski]

On 1/12/2022 at 5:32 PM, The Nehor said:

Yeah, and that story stuck with you. I think we all heard those stories. We saw it on TV or someone told us the story they read or whatever. I once did a bit of digging trying to verify this happening and couldn’t find anything confirmable.

Others have also tried: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-panhandlers-make-50-an-hour/

I am more cynical now. I don’t trust the reports of hobos with mansions and Ferraris. The main reason I don’t trust them is if it were that easy to convert cash into a (taxless) luxury wealth lifestyle criminals wouldn’t need to launder money. About a decade ago I read about a hobo who was pulling in a million in a year and teaching classes on panhandling. Really? I learned a long time ago that if you have found the secret to making wealth under the radar the absolute DUMBEST thing you can do is teach it to others and oversaturate the market. The people offering classes on becoming successful are generally not successful. If they were successful they wouldn’t be teaching classes on it. The whole thing just seems like a smoke and mirrors thing designed to make people hate and detest the poor more than they already do. It is frankly disgusting.

Besides I am sure that the IRS would LOVE to become close friends with the author 

 

[liberal81]

I pray often to be inspired to give or not give to those who beg. And I leave it at that. There are some interesting comments here and I have enjoyed reading what people have to say. But I am much disappointed that so many seem to worry about the fairly few dollars that a begger might receive, and make no comment about the person who has diabetes who cannot afford his/her insulin here in the US that costs $200 a day where a similar person in Canada pays only $30 dollars. Or the business owner who hires people for such a low wage the employee has to have food stamps to get by. Or any other example of employer exploitation of workers. Where are our values? Do we really have any?

[rchorse]

14 minutes ago, liberal81 said:

I pray often to be inspired to give or not give to those who beg. And I leave it at that. There are some interesting comments here and I have enjoyed reading what people have to say. But I am much disappointed that so many seem to worry about the fairly few dollars that a begger might receive, and make no comment about the person who has diabetes who cannot afford his/her insulin here in the US that costs $200 a day where a similar person in Canada pays only $30 dollars. Or the business owner who hires people for such a low wage the employee has to have food stamps to get by. Or any other example of employer exploitation of workers. Where are our values? Do we really have any?

While I agree with you on many of these issues, I think no one is commenting on them because they aren't the topic of the thread. Not to mention that they are highly politically charged and politics are not allowed on the board.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, liberal81 said:

I pray often to be inspired to give or not give to those who beg. And I leave it at that. There are some interesting comments here and I have enjoyed reading what people have to say. But I am much disappointed that so many seem to worry about the fairly few dollars that a begger might receive, and make no comment about the person who has diabetes who cannot afford his/her insulin here in the US that costs $200 a day where a similar person in Canada pays only $30 dollars. Or the business owner who hires people for such a low wage the employee has to have food stamps to get by. Or any other example of employer exploitation of workers. Where are our values? Do we really have any?

There are medical plans through the states and feds that take care of such things for the indigent, and there are two sides of every question.   I have never heard of any diabetic paying $200/ day.

"Exploitation of workers" is a buzz word for the far left

As a former student of Angela Davis, I know it when I see it.

And yes, we must avoid politics here

Are you 41 years old?

Edited January 16, 2022 by mfbukowski

[rodheadlee]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

There are medical plans through the states and feds that take care of such things for the indigent, and there are two sides of every question.   I have never heard of any diabetic paying $200/ day.

"Exploitation of workers" is a buzz word for the far left

As a former student of Angela Davis, I know it when I see it.

And yes, we must avoid politics here

Are you 41 years old?

The problem is it's true these days. Maximizing profits is the buzzword across the board rooms of America.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

any diabetic paying $200/ day.

I think they mean a month. I believe we pay over that amount for my daughter’s insulin before we hit our deductible.  She gets 3 vials a month. If you add in testing supplies, needles or pump supplies, it gets unaffordable pretty fast for many without insurance.  Our quality of life would be taking a hit if we included the cost everything the diabetes affects medically speaking that insurance covers (other disorders are aggravated by the diabetes and also require expensive drugs).
 

Quote

Today, vials of analog insulins, including Humalog, sell for about $300 . Patients with Type 1 diabetes typically require two or three vials of insulin per month, but patients who are more resistant to insulin, such as those with Type 2 diabetes, may require six or more.Jun 22, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/insulin-is-too-expensive-for-many-of-my-patients-it-doesnt-have-to-be/2017/06/22/c5091c42-56cf-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html

Test strips are currently about $2 a day for my daughter iirc. Buying online is much cheaper than what the pharmacy charges though and I am going by that (I keep a bought online stash in reserve for when my daughter runs out because she forgot to tell me to order it and for some reason we have gone off autorefill again, much less likely to occur these days).  I think it might even be $100 for what would be $50 online. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Calm

[Rain]

Just now, Calm said:

I think they mean a month. I believe we pay over that amount for my daughter’s insulin before we hit our deductible. 

They have to mean a month or they have it very wrong.  I just loosely calculated my insulin including my pump, transmitter, sensors, blood tester and strips etc and I'm at about $24/day if I didn't have insurance. 

And yep, not having insurance bites pretty hard - if I were still there without insurance I would choose shots and vials so I could save more.

[Calm]

44 minutes ago, Rain said:

And yep, not having insurance bites pretty hard - if I were still there without insurance I would choose shots and vials so I could save more.

The quality of her life was so different when she was on a pump, we would downsize dramatically, cut out Netflix, etc and move to a cheaper community before taking her off the pump, but lots of people don’t have that option. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Calm

[poptart]

I'm always torn on this stuff, I remember almost being homeless when my father finally snapped, we went at it and it ended with my mom almost being killed, me in the hospital from bear mace, a restraining order being served and having to go half way across the country to wait for his disease processes to finally take him out, it was awful.  Asking for help from churches was the worst, nothing like I expected.  I was healthy and thin so people thought I was just some punk kid.  Also, I was foolish to answer honestly when conversion came up about orientation.  Funny, tons of people "convert" to the LDS church then demand handouts but because I was LGBT, nope I was out.  I was grateful for what help I did get, that was when I really started to see the other side as well as why so many have little to no sympathy.  There are a ton of homeless people who genuinely need help, esp. mental/addiction help.  Unfortunately, there are also a ton of parasites that just exploit good meaning folks, so many people in states like WA have just been burned and are sick of it all.  It really sucks for those who genuinely need help but what can you do?

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

I think they mean a month.

THAT is the problem with the statement made.

I am sympathetic, but I had type 2 and drastically changed my life, and I have never needed meds.

But I know that type 1 is a different animal, but I know that very careful disease management can make a huge difference.

AND I know insurance is available for indigent folks.  But yes it is all a huge, huge trial, and I get it.

But $200/ day is WAY beyond belief if one is making any effort to overcome it.

If I am wrong, I apologize, but I think the comment was way beyond reality.

 

 

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

THAT is the problem with the statement made.

I am sympathetic, but I had type 2 and drastically changed my life, and I have never needed meds.

But I know that type 1 is a different animal, but I know that very careful disease management can make a huge difference.

AND I know insurance is available for indigent folks.  But yes it is all a huge, huge trial, and I get it.

But $200/ day is WAY beyond belief if one is making any effort to overcome it.

If I am wrong, I apologize, but I think the comment was way beyond reality.

 

 

I agree accuracy is important, but I do typos all the time, leaving out or putting in “not” is one of my worst.  Switching out day for month accidentally seems very easy and unintentional to me and it likely a result if thinking of the drug as needed on a daily basis even while knowing one gets a month’s worth by prescription….unless would those with money issues be able to get for a smaller amount than a month because they wouldn’t be able to have that much on hand?

 

Test strips were OTC in Canada, not prescription even if you had to ask the cashier to get them for you.  I am currently wondering though why insulin needs to be prescribed.  Are they too nervous people taking it won’t see a doctor and end up taking too much or too little (since it is dangerous for type 1s, but I bet most experienced type 1s adjust their insulin just fine on their own?  My daughter needs help because she has such a complicated picture with very little pattern to how she eats and what.  When I was healthier and cooking and shopping more for her it was better nutritionally, but her sleep was all over and what didn’t make her feel like heaving is limited (she has fibromyalgia, diabetes, migraines, and rls which means she can’t take most nausea meds).  But most don’t have such complicated pictures.

[Calm]

Wow…I hadn’t been paying attention.  There is OTC insulin.

Quote

The cost of insulin is a serious problem for many people with diabetes, and one affordable option is over-the-counter, or OTC, insulin. While it’s been available to people for decades because of a loophole in prescription regulations, recently OTC insulin became more affordable when Walmart teamed up with drugmaker Novo Nordisk to sell its own Walmart brand called ReliOn insulin for $25 a vial.

https://www.everydayhealth.com/diabetes/otc-insulin-what-know-before-you-buy/

Quote

Walmart sells up to 18,800 vials per day at its pharmacies in 49 states.

Quote

Dr. Goldstein decided to research OTC insulin because she prescribes ReliOn brand insulin as the least expensive option for people without health insurance in her clinical practice. Insulin prices have risen dramatically in recent years, nearly tripling from 2002 to 2013 according to an article published in April 2016 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In March 2019, Eli Lilly announced it would sell a cheaper generic version of its Humalog 100 insulin for about $137 a vial, effectively cutting the price of the original in half. Other fixes include Cigna and Express Scripts offering a $25 cap on out-of-pocket insulin costs for its consumers in participating plans.

I want to know why prices were hiked up so much on the current ones quite awhile back.  I think I was misunderstood and got the wrong answers now I actually looked at dates as they must have thought I was talking about the OTC insulin’s, but my daughter was diagnosed in 2001 and never was on them and I remember even in the US the first few years prices weren’t as bad and then one day I pick up the insulin and it’s hundreds. I thought I had solved the mystery here, but hadn’t.  Timing isn’t right.

Added:  guessing this is the explanation as around 2007 sounds about right….so I have been asking doctors and pharmacists why this happened for 15 years now at least once a year and no one gave me the correct answer…got to wonder what they were getting told by the company’s reps, if it was nonsense they made sense out of to explain to to patients or if reps were telling them different stories or what happened.  I am so not impressed with just leaving regulation in the hands of the market if this is an example of how it works.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/31/why-insulin-prices-have-kept-rising-for-95-years/

Quote

Another that launched two decades ago with a sticker price of $21 a vial has been increased to $255.

This is the drug my daughter takes.  Turns out the price hikes are justified to pay for research on other drugs…yeah….but new drugs are priced so high because they need to pay for the research….research that amounts to little tweaks here and there that just happen to be enough to get a new patent but not much else, which is why my daughter is on a 28 year old drug.

 I read years ago that theOTC  weren’t available anymore because there was no market, the doctors wouldn’t prescribe them.  I thought doctors were unrealistic because I knew of people spreading out their doses and tolerating high sugars to make their insulin last longer. When I asked her doctor why they didn’t use them, I think she said there were more bad reactions to their ingredients. (Don’t know if she is right).
 

 My daughter was never on the older insulins, she can’t control her levels using long acting insulin.

A more up to date article about insulin prices…how the market works…

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/02/02/fact-check-insulin-prices-going-up-senator-chuck-grassley-explains/4359751001/

Edited January 17, 2022 by Calm

[Rain]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

Wow…I hadn’t been paying attention.  There is OTC insulin.

https://www.everydayhealth.com/diabetes/otc-insulin-what-know-before-you-buy/

I want to know why prices were hiked up so much on the current ones quite awhile back.  I think I was misunderstood and got the wrong answers now I actually looked at dates as they must have thought I was talking about the OTC insulin’s, but my daughter was diagnosed in 2001 and never was on them and I remember even in the US the first few years prices weren’t as bad and then one day I pick up the insulin and it’s hundreds. I thought I had solved the mystery here, but hadn’t.  Timing isn’t right.

Added:  guessing this is the explanation as around 2007 sounds about right….so I have been asking doctors and pharmacists why this happened for 15 years now at least once a year and no one gave me the correct answer…got to wonder what they were getting told by the company’s reps, if it was nonsense they made sense out of to explain to to patients or if reps were telling them different stories or what happened.  I am so not impressed with just leaving regulation in the hands of the market if this is an example of how it works.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/31/why-insulin-prices-have-kept-rising-for-95-years/

This is the drug my daughter takes.  Turns out the price hikes are justified to pay for research on other drugs…yeah….but new drugs are priced so high because they need to pay for the research….research that amounts to little tweaks here and there that just happen to be enough to get a new patent but not much else, which is why my daughter is on a 28 year old drug.

 I read years ago that theOTC  weren’t available anymore because there was no market, the doctors wouldn’t prescribe them.  I thought doctors were unrealistic because I knew of people spreading out their doses and tolerating high sugars to make their insulin last longer. When I asked her doctor why they didn’t use them, I think she said there were more bad reactions to their ingredients. (Don’t know if she is right).
 

 My daughter was never on the older insulins, she can’t control her levels using long acting insulin.

A more up to date article about insulin prices…how the market works…

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/02/02/fact-check-insulin-prices-going-up-senator-chuck-grassley-explains/4359751001/

One of the big differences is who pays for them.  If insurance is paying for them they want a prescription.  If the patient is then in most states OTC is not a problem, depending on the insulin.

And yes, research is a big thing.  My husband designs chips for medical equipment.  The cost for his company to design a tiny chip that goes into that equipment is huge. There is so much that goes into designing and creating a chip, but then you add all the safety stuff for medical equipment and FDA approval etc it just piles up.

Occasionally someone will ask him to build a chip for pinewood derby or something.  "Shouldn't be too much right?  $10. " well, yes, the second chip might be that much, but the first will be a million and since no one will buy just the first one you have it covered in subsequent chips. 

I imagine meds are similar.

As a consumer for 44 years of diabetes supplies and the wife of someone who designs medical stuff I can see both sides.  Not an easy dilemma to solve.