Co-Payments Go Way Up for Drugs With High Prices

Source: NY Times

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too.

No one knows how many patients are affected, but hundreds of drugs are priced this new way. They are used to treat diseases that may be fairly common, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, hepatitis C and some cancers. There are no cheaper equivalents for these drugs, so patients


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/us/14drug.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Coicidentally I watched Sicko tonight for the first time. When is this country going to wake up and vote for those who will bring us singlepayer and put these health insurance companies out of business and not fall for the crap put out by the multimillionaire blowhards on Faux and in the punditry?

...insurance companies out of business". Probably never, the insurance industry is too big and powerful unfortunately.

If we went to a single-payer system, we would still require large numbers of people to process the information. While certainly true that the system would be nowhere as bloated as it is today, it would- like the Postal Service- still require employees, and probably several hundred thousand of them (again, like the Postal Service).

So, we exercise our public right to eminent domain in, for a change, a socially responsible way. We seize, lock, stock, and barrel, every last asset of the so-called "health insurance" companies and fold them into the single payer system.

Every last asset required to establish a single payer system is currently owned by the so-called "health insurance" companies. They are not persons, they are leechlike corporations which demonstrably are doing more harm than they are good. I say we just take everything they own and throw the most egregious of the murderers-by-spreadsheet into the slammer for a long, long time.

(A friend of mine was just diagnosed with HIV, so this article, and many others in the same vein, has just become very personal all over again.)

God, it made me despise my parents and grandparents generations for sticking us with this mess while every other western industrialized nation has decent, affordable care.

This country is just so backwards in so many ways. I sincerely hope that it isn't too late to turn things around.

... at which point *we* need to be ready to force our ideas forward. Start educating friends and frenemies as to the better way, and maybe we'll get there.

You cannot do that under Eminent Domain. If the government seizes anything under those provisions, they have to pay fair market value for it.

The only way you can seize assets without compensation as you wish to do, is either prove criminal wrongdoing on the part of said corporations or amend the Constitution.
I don't think I want to see the Constitution amended in that way. Imagine what the current regime would do with that kind of power!

And also wanted to move to France. We are so backward in this country.

Some of my favorite bits were the golfer from Canada, discussing how Canada's most-revered person is the man who championed and brought them universal health coverage; Tony Benn(?) from England; and one of the expatriots in France saying that France actually understands real family values, by making sure that families are taken care of.

some of the stores will immediately carry it ---

Also --- sure haven't seen it on TV --- !!!

Instead of showing Godfather I and II every damn weekend a film like this ought to be on cable at least once a month!

ACTUALLY, I read recently that most American doctors are now in favor of universal single payer health care ---

It's been on a premium cable channel, but hasn't made it to network TV yet (or likely ever). You're going to need to rent it.

Great video with Tommy's Grandson Keifer Sutherland

Mouseland...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90

And great video/speech. Thanks!!

The contrast between Canadian Baptist preachers and the US version is quite remarkable. Tommy's entry into politics came from his years as a preacher and the despair he witnessed. The ability of people to access health care was just one of his concerns. The party has had a long standing relationship with the Christan left, which of course sees things far differently that the US Fundy right. With the multi party system of parliamentary democracy in Canada, those voices are not shut out and have had great influence in the shaping of Canada's current success as a nation.

So exactly how does one go about immigrating into Canada? :)

Yeah, our fundy Christians have a seriously warped set of priorities relative to what the J-man once preached. Fortunately, some religious organizations are forming in an attempt to take back the helm of Christianity from the fundies, but it may take a while to see any results.

Gonna be a lot of sick and dying people without any means to get what they need.

Bastards.

Fixing Social Security by killing us off sooner.

Grandma was a school teacher. With her limited retirement benefits, she'd be choosing between losing her home or starving...or dying?

...say goodbye to Grandma.

that has been experiencing record revenues?

Good thing they are finding more ways to maximize profits at the expense of their customers. :sarcasm:

run $1400 a month. At first,my co-pay was $10 monthly- they would not let me order through mail for a three month supply for the same cost. Then they raised it to $50 monthly, for the pleasure of injecting myself three times weekly. Now as a federal employee, I am paid well, but my budget can not handle much more than the $50. I also have times where I can not work, due to my condition, so I have depleted my sick leave and gone on LWOP more than once.

Single payer healthcare, anyone? Hell, yeah- lets get the profit out of healthcare!

one of the insurance companies upping the co-pay is supplying insurance to federal workers. Hope congress is on this plan - probably not.

According to the taxi driver who took me on a tour of this small but magnificent island, population about 1400, he and his wife have a "co-pay" of $200 per year for the couple. When his wife needed open-heart surgery last year, the govt. health program flew her from the Caribbean to Holland for the surgery. All residents/citizens of the island have this option whenever they need surgery. Holland also completely pays for state of the art fire/police/ambulance equipment for the island.

Also, the Dutch govt. is paying to have all the overhead utility lines put under ground - so islanders don't have to worry about hurricanes destroying their power supplies/phone lines. And that is no simple task on a rocky island of volcanic origin. Placing utility lines underground is the standard throughout Europe by the way. We'll never see that in the US because it would eat into the profits of the private utility companies. The result, here in PA, is that everytime there's a major wind event, many trees are knocked down onto power lines and we have power outages that can last anywhere from several days to a week or two. Theoretically, the power companies are supposed to trim back the trees, to minimize this, and that used to be done every 2 years or so. However, it's been at least 4 years since the trees in my area have been trimmed back - but, hey, Duquesne Light stockholders' dividends and the top management's bonuses have to be protected!

I had the chance to visit for a few hours back in the 80's on a Windjammer cruise. Loved the people and the volcanic topography (and 1 lane roads at the time climbing the mountain) are amazing. As is the airport which looked like a landlocked aircraft carrier strip.

Amazing how the Dutch govt still cares for their health care.

I live in W PA so I know what you mean about Duquesne Light. When I was a kid back in the 60s the lights no matter how bad the storm weren't out for more than a couple hours. Now wind or bad thunder or snow storms have them out for days even stretching in to over a week.

I have a chronically ill child and forked out between 10-20K this past year alone for deductibles, co-pays and the like.....and I'm insured. :mad:

My insurance has been rejecting claims made for prescriptions from Wal-Mart on their $4 co-pay plan.

They try to make up for it by billing my insurance for excessive charges on generic prescriptions.

It's just a matter of time before the insurance goes up and I end up paying even more.

Wal-Mart is such a scumbag outfit.

WalMart's pharmacy, who is your insurer and why are they rejecting it?

Wal-Mart is asking for too much in reimbursement, so the Carrier will only pay them the max that they will allow for the given generic.
Basically, they try to squeeze as much out of the carrier that they can by overcharging and collecting the max allowed.
This is how they make up for the reduced co-pay.

But if Walmart is squeezing insurance good for them. I'd like to see ALL insurance companies shut down.

and the consumer gets the biggest chunk taken out of their hide in the end.

We've needed something to galvanize people into supporting national health care. This may well do the trick. A "market" system in which the insurers are permitted to externalize any significant risks while maintaining the same premiums isn't a "market" at all - it's larceny.

What kind of fucking system is this, when people will (and already do) die just because they can't afford expensive medication or procedures?

As medical costs continue to rise, insurance companies charge more $$$ and cover less of the costs, and McCain's brilliant plan to eliminate employer deductions for health coverage, we're only going to witness more people dying.

We aren't going to get single payer, not from anyone. Why we put up with this is beyond me.

elected. Putting the insurance companies out of business is a pipe dream.

All the candidates talk the talk, but I can bank on the fact that none of them will walk the walk. Too much $$$$ and corruption.

FRONTLINE presents
SICK AROUND THE WORLD
Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS


FRONTLINE TRAVELS TO FIVE COUNTRIES IN SEARCH OF A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM THAT COULD WORK IN THE U.S.

FRONTLINE teams up with T.R. Reid, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, to find out how five other capitalist democracies--United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland--deliver health care and what the United States might learn from their successes and their failures. In Sick Around the World, airing Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), Reid turns up remarkable differences in how these countries handle health care--from Japan, where a night in a hospital can cost as little as $10, to Switzerland, where the president of the country tells Reid it would be a "huge scandal" if someone were to go bankrupt from medical bills.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/#press

The whole system is a wreck but this is outrageous. The industry gets bolder every year. Now they are basically telling people to die or give up everything they own for the live saving pill. When I read about the woman coming out of the pharmacy and crying in her car I wanted to hit something. How can we do this to our own people? How much longer must this go on? This country used to be a pretty good place, but not anymore. We sink further into the abyss every year.