You know that one of my favorite topics is healthcare. This time it's a doozie, if we can ever begin to define doozie.
For those of you following at home, my new insurance has a $5,000 deductible, plus over $500 per month in premiums. I shopped Obamacare and found that my choices were very similar, so I went with a work plan.
I had to pick up a prescription the other day. This was at the only pharmacy chain I was permitted to use. The lovely lady behind the counter, flush with cleavage (moreso than most customer service people) rang the medicine up and hesitated, backing away from the register. This was a subtle sign that I chose to file away in the almost not-noticed category.
She asked if I knew I had a copay. Of course I had a copay, this was Obamacare. This is when I made my second mistake: "Hit me," I said.
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars.
I forgot all about her cleavage, which is something I cannot normally avoid and asked her to repeat it, in case I had stuck an icepick in my ear or had a lapse in my ability to comprehend numbers.
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars.
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars?
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars.
For medicine?
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars.
For an old, generic medicine I have to refill monthly.
Thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, to quote South Park. What have we come to? This is a negotiated preferred price. I cannot afford that now, no less monthly.
What exactly were the criminal Obama and criminal Congress thinking? Oh yeah, gifts for the insurers and Big Pharma<tm>. How are (semi-)normal people supposed to afford healthcare? I have bloodwork scheduled and I'm wondering if I should mortgage the house in preparation. HOW IS THIS INSURANCE?
My doctor recommended a few online sites. Friends recommended Canada. I wound up at goodrx.com. This is a coupon-based site that negotiates deals. It even works with insurance. You can only go to certain places but they are chains, like Walmart. According to the website, my thirteen hundred and forty seven dollar prescription would cost me thirty seven dollars. Really - thirty seven dollars. Gee, that's a bit of a discount.
Off to Walmart. The medicine was six hundred dollars cash. With the coupon, it was only about three hundred and fifty dollars. Even the most math-impaired among us will recognize that the discount price was about ten times the advertised price. The kind gentleman behind the counter, completely without cleavage, informed me that the 'discount' price from the website was usually incorrect, even to the ten times figure.
A call to the site yielded the fact that although there were seven options, none of them led to a human (even after yelling the F-word, which sometimes gets you what passes for a human). Each option recommended performing that action online. Emailing would take twenty four hours, which I did not wish to spend wandering around Walmart, even considering this was a twenty four hour Walmart.
My very patient doctor prescribed something else, which was ready in ten minutes, at about sixty bucks with coupon from goodrx. When I suggested strangling the people who voted for Obamacare, the doc said it was actually Big Pharma<tm>. That's a lot of strangling. The situation is so bad that the doctor didn't have health insurance. Digest that for a moment.
Contact your Congressperson and demand a workable solution. This can mean torture and/or starving for people who need healthcare. You think gun-related violence is bad now? Wait til people can't get their psych meds.
With concern and respect,
-lefty
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