I’ve really been getting into New Amsterdam lately – such as the power of Netflix – though the nature of such shows isn’t typically appealing to me, namely they tend to be soapy.

And that’s not to say that New Amsterdam doesn’t have its moments but overall it’s dramatic without being overly so.

To those unaware, the series revolves around a public hospital in New York and an ensemble cast of doctors.

The series begins with the arrival of a new medical director, Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold), who has this weird idea that hospitals should work for the benefit of their patients, as opposed to making profits.

Crazy, right?

In any case, one of the subplots of the episode revolves around a woman who can’t afford the insulin she needs to live, so Dr. Goodwin dedicates a significant amount of energy finding ways to make the pharmaceutical company that supplies the hospital’s insulin lower their prices, including getting it directly from Canada.

Which the episode reveals as a hollow threat since apparently they could not do so because it would be stopped at the border.

This hits close to home since Sen. Bernie Sanders is looking into pharmaceutical companies for price collusion on insulin though what concerns me is that the only reason pharmaceutical companies can raise the price for drugs like insulin is that our government allows them to do so.

And it’s worth mentioning that the show is accurate when it says that drug companies simply tweak the formula in ways that allow them to extend patent protection, but don’t alter the drug in any significant way since it was ‘discovered’ in the early 1900’s.