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An Associated Press analysis published in late September 2018 warned that prescription drug prices in the United States were still rising precipitously despite President Trump's vow to reduce them. During the first seven months of the year, the report said, prescription drug prices saw 96 increases for every cut. The human cost of runaway prescription drugs prices was dramatically illustrated in a meme shared on the Occupy Democrats Facebook page on 18 September: The text is mostly accurate, although it has Smith's given name wrong (it was Alec, not Alex), and he died in 2017, not this year as claimed in the 2018 meme. According to local news reports, Alec Raeshawn Smith's lifeless body was found in his apartment on 27 June 2017, 27 days after his coverage under his mother's health insurance policy had lapsed due to his age. The cause of death was diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes that occurs when the body produces excess blood acids (called ketones) because it lacks enough insulin. In a piece contributed to Truthout.org in February 2018, Smith's mother, Nicole Smith-Holt, wrote that even though Alec had a full-time job, it did not come with employer-provided health coverage: The prohibitive cost drove Smith to ration his insulin use to try to make his supply stretch to the next payday. I have since learned that this is not uncommon, Smith-Holt wrote, and is indicative of a worsening health care crisis: The American Diabetes Association released a report in March 2018 estimating that the total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States had risen 26 percent in the previous five years: In November 2017, we confirmed the similar case of Shane Patrick Boyle, an uninsured type 1 diabetic who died of ketoacidosis shortly after starting a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise enough money for a one-month supply of insulin.
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