w00t w00t booyah

To be fair, a few points:

1. It's a little unclear from your post exactly what year you were remembering the $8/$12 bottles from, but it's important to note that general consumer price indices have more than doubled since just 1985, which means a $12 bottle in 1985 would cost over $25 today, just due to inflation, etc. (which doesn't account for the full differential you mentioned, but it's not an insignificant part of it)

2. Modern insulin analogs do perform substantially better for many people than the older stuff. It's now possible to get versions which are significantly more targetable, predictable, and safe, including for many people not having to be taken in as large quantities or as often, which can mean that $41 bottle may actually last longer than the old ones.

3. It is possible to get some of the older versions of the insulin analogs (not the old pig stuff, but older biologic ones that aren't quite as nifty as the new line) for reduced prices. One article I saw was talking about being able to get older analogs at Wal-Mart for $19 a bottle (which, when inflation-adjusted, would be equivalent to about $9.25 in 1985-terms, and will probably perform far better than the 1985-version insulin ever did)

This isn't to say that there aren't problems still. Frankly, I agree that this all should be a lot cheaper than it is at the moment (the fact that the FDA is effectively stalling all production of generic insulin seems to be one factor), and the fact that diabetics have to pay out of their own pockets (even partially) for something so critical to just staying alive and healthy is, in my opinion, wrong in and of itself. (Then again, if we're going to list everything that's wrong with current US health care, it's gonna be a long night..)