A few days ago, A friend and I were discussing the problem pain patients have with prescriptions. He suffers from severe pain and his health care insurer insists on filling his medication two times a month. This, to me, seemed ridiculous and downright unfair. People with chronic illness and chronic pain have a lot to deal with and it seems (what is the opposite of compassionate? Let’s go with callous) callous to make these patients jump through hoops, not once, but twice a month. In addition, many of these individuals only get paid once a month from disability making it extremely dicey.
I turned to my good buddy Google to see if there was any kind of assistance available to provide prescription relief to those who qualify. I found a site that aggregates how and where the cheapest options exist. On a lark I decided to look at the medication that I have just been prescribed to help improve my quality of life and hopefully assuage many of my persistent symptoms.
I typed in the name and came back with a figure of $633 PER DOSE. I was gobsmacked. If I take the lowest dose daily for a year, (and mind you, this is most likely a forever drug for me) this medication will cost roughly $242,000 dollars.
Wow.
Look, I have insurance and I’m hopeful that I will be covered for this and that the actual hit to my wallet will be much less than the quarter of a million dollars that this medication sells for. But many people do not, and will chose to go without the medication that can help.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a world where sick people have to choose between food and medication. We are better than that America, and we need to urge our leaders to correct the problem immediately.