An open letter to my U.S. Representatives, Crenshaw and Brown:
It’s happened to me again. Again, I am forced to purchase a commonly prescribed medication from a foreign country because of our broken health care system.
Again, the medication is a common one. A name brand that’s been around for years and is advertised on TV.
The prescription costs me $40 for 30 doses even with Medicare Advantage. The cost without health insurance, a whopping $104! The same name brand prescription costs $30 for 30 doses in Canada. The generic equivalent, available everywhere on earth except in the U.S., costs $30 for 90 doses in Canada.
Within the year, when the generic equivalent is available in the U.S., the cost for this medication will be $4 for 30 doses at Walmart. How can that be?
There is no excuse for the cost of medication being higher here than elsewhere in the world, and certainly no excuse for generic equivalents not being available here but available everywhere else in the world. Tell me, why is it that Medicare is prohibited from either bidding the cost of medications or from purchasing them from overseas?
Mr. Crenshaw and Ms. Brown, we Americans are fed-up with being taken to the cleaners by the pharmaceutical industry, aided and abetted by an incompetent and corrupt Congress.
We want health care reform and we don’t care if it rides in on a pachyderm or a jack-ass. We want you to work together to make it happen and if you can’t do that, we will find someone who can.
Sincerely,
Mr. Charleston
You tell them. I'm having a similar situation myself. It's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteOh but then how will the rich get richer? what better way to keep the poor poorer?
ReplyDeletemuch love
Mr. C, you rock! I wonder if these two characters (aka, congressmen) have the mojo (or whatever it takes) to get this thing knocked out once and for all?
ReplyDeleteI would cry if I was over there. Want me to mail you some aspirin?
ReplyDeleteMy migraine medication is $280 for 9 pills. Yep, 9 pills. With my insurance (I pay an extra $10 a month for prescription coverage), it gets cut down to $50 for 9, thank goodness, and I only take maybe 4 pills a month. There isn't a generic for this particular pill just yet, but I have to have this one-- all the others give me side effects. The first time I realized how much they'd charge for this pill if I didn't have insurance, I nearly stroked.
ReplyDeleteMr. C
ReplyDeleteIt is a fucking racket. Scuse my French. It's cheaper there to swear, too.
The pharmaceuticals are part of the elite.
ReplyDeleteCan I have a different reality please?
Thanks everybody. This letter was published in the local newspaper and is raising the ruckus I hoped for. It's time for some frigging change we can believe in.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone who is 60+ like me, has a story to tell about being shafted by the pharmaceutical companies, glad you got your letter published, hope it does some good.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can also find out why hospitals charge $5 for two Tylenol tablets.
ReplyDeleteThe system is broken.
C I am so cynical that I believe only armed resurrection is going to correct this shit. You are writing to the very recipients of pharmaceutical money that gets them elected. They are not going to upset that train. Greed is so fucking rampant in this country that only alien intervention is going to stop it, and I do mean aliens from Alpha Centawhatever. Meanwhile, I suggest that you take Mo Stoneskin up on his offer.
ReplyDeleteBTW scarlethue, my wife has the very same problem...probably the same medication.
intell...you can get TWO Tylenol for a fiver there?
JJ... my sentiments exactly. I believe I commented on your blog following the abismal Supreme Court sell-out to big-business political contributions that from this point forward I support arming the populace with anything they want, because, in the end, only armed revolt will change the the totally corrupt capitalist system.
ReplyDeleteOur shit is so expensive because like everything else our economy subsidizes the entire worlds discount.
ReplyDelete