# Some kind of diabetes scam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343 "2014-07-29T18:24:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/21 "2014-07-31T16:30:54Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > The whole point of a free market is that this isn’t supposed to happen. If the true cost of manufacturing the strips were 5 cents, that hypothetical company selling them at 10 cents would be making plenty of profit. How hard is it to make these strips? Could you do it at home with a chemistry textbook and a book on paper-making techniques? Could a startup company do it? If the strips really did cost only 5 cents to make, you would expect to see third party companies start making “compatible” strips and sell them for less than the brand name. You know, kind of like how you can now buy third-party ink and toner cartridges and third-party almost anything for your car. Where are the generic test strip suppliers? Anyone have a number? Bueller? ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/22 "2014-07-31T17:18:08Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > How hard is it to make these strips? Could you do it at home with a chemistry textbook and a book on paper-making techniques? Could a startup company do it? > > If the strips really did cost only 5 cents to make, you would expect to see third party companies start making “compatible” strips and sell them for less than the brand name. You know, kind of like how you can now buy third-party ink and toner cartridges and third-party almost anything for your car. Where are the generic test strip suppliers? Anyone have a number? Bueller? They’re not made of paper. Like I said, I get the ReliOn at 50 for $9.00 at Walmart. That’s the cheapest that I know of. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/23 "2014-07-31T18:39:46Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > They’re not made of paper. Like I said, I get the ReliOn at 50 for $9.00 at Walmart. That’s the cheapest that I know of. And you cannot ReliOn them at all to give an accurate reading in my experience. They always would read way over compared to my Bayer meter and the readings that my doctor took confirmed this. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/24 "2014-07-31T19:45:37Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > And you cannot ReliOn them at all to give an accurate reading in my experience. They always would read way over compared to my Bayer meter and the readings that my doctor took confirmed this. My doctor says they’re fine, especially considering the cost. When it’s all you can afford, you take what you can get. I’ll try to do a comparison with another meter later to see what sort of difference I get in the reading. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/25 "2014-08-01T02:50:06Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Why doesn’t another company offer the strips at $0.10 each, manufactured in some gigafactory in China? What about them makes them so expensive? They essentially use the ‘computer printer’ business model, i.e. they sell the printers themselves at a loss and make up for it by charging a fortune for the ink/toner cartridges. Used to be called the ‘razor blade model’ because they sell them the same way. Over the years I’ve had at least five or six different glucose meters and I’ve never paid anything for the meters themselves. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/26 "2014-08-01T03:07:35Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Yeah, it’s called ‘insurance fraud’ and it can get you into real trouble if you get caught. I’ve been diabetic for nearly 30 years and the price of strips has remained pretty consistent at about $1 per strip regardless of the number you buy (box of 25=$25, box of 100=$100). Way back in the day before electronic meters became affordable you put a drop of blood on the strip and then just compared the color it changed to to a graph on the side of the bottle. Diabetic magazines used to sell little roller-cutters that would let you slice the test strips in half or even thirds to save money! > > Right now I only have Medicaid and I still get 200 strips a month for less than $10! Not gonna get into the ethics of whether reselling them cheaply to poor people is a good thing or not… Wow, you must be young. When I first started in nursing, as a nursing assistant, we had to put 5 ccs of the patient’s urine in a test tube, drop in a highly toxic “tablet”, wait for it to foam up then settle, then compare the color of that to a chart. This was how patients at home tested too. I believe the tablet was some kind of very strong base. We had more than a few patients swallow one by accident or design. If they didn’t die a horrible, painful death, they were unable to swallow ever again. Some burned their tongue so badly they lost the ability to speak. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343/27 "2014-08-01T18:36:19Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Wow, you must be young. When I first started in nursing, as a nursing assistant, we had to put 5 ccs of the patient’s urine in a test tube, drop in a highly toxic “tablet”, wait for it to foam up then settle, then compare the color of that to a chart. This was how patients at home tested too. I believe the tablet was some kind of very strong base. > > We had more than a few patients swallow one by accident or design. If they didn’t die a horrible, painful death, they were unable to swallow ever again. Some burned their tongue so badly they lost the ability to speak. WARNING: All this base are belong to us. If you swallow it, you will be on the way to destruction. Make your time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-kind-of-diabetes-scam/694343.md?page=1)