drug company upstaging doctors' orders on medication=mass murder of the

elderly and infirmed. not yet a nazified concentration camp in our america, but our beloved america is getting there. inciting people to cut on their medication and hailing it as a savings is inciting mass murder of the people who depend on those medications for life sustaining purposes.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-rxsplit10may10,0,7064488.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines


"Retirees often joke they will get in trouble if the HMO finds out they split their pills to save money, but now one of the nation's largest health insurers is pushing the idea.

United HealthCare, the nation's second largest insurer and among the largest in Florida, is the first major health plan to give discounts of up to $300 a year to members who split pills in half as a way to save on prescription drugs."

eom

and get the savings of receiving twice the meds for the price of one prescription. The VA has done it for years. The article makes it pretty clear, they certainly aren't doing anything to harm the populace (for a change).

They aren't advising people to cut back on their dosage at all. The way you phrased your post could be misinterpreted that way.

If a person has a script for WOnderzine 500mg per day and gets a fill of 30 1000mg pills, by splitting the pills they get the prescribed dose for 60 days and may save some money by not buying 60 500mg pills. Not the same as halving dosages. My HMO does this for some drugs.

Are 1000mg pills less than twice as expensive as 500mg pills?

Buying 100 50mg pills is cheaper than 200 25mg for the insurer who - theoretically -passes the savings on to the patient. For example, Cozaar, a hypotensive in the ARB class that's not available as a generic, 100 50mg pills cost $172.00; 50 100mg pills cost $125.00.

Cozaar does come with a special pill cutter (it's an odd-shaped pill) and cutting them is a pain in the ass; others, though, are easier to cut and are even scored for cutting.

... opening their pill bottles, let alone splitting pills in half... Sounds confusing for many older folks...

As long as the prescribed dosage is not tampered with, I really don't see much wrong with this, for a change...

I can't see anything more final than dying from lower then effective dosages of critical drugs...

If the patients needs to take 20mgs of a medication, and orders the same quantity of 40mg tablets to split them, then the patient saves a lot of money, and still gets the dosage they need.

So long as their doctor is in the loop and approves this, no issue.