Sunday, March 29, 2015

THE HIGH COST OF DRUGS


Like most elderly people, I take several medicines every day--for hypertension, arthritis, and other ailments--and hate to think what life would be without those drugs.
Recently I learned I have pancreatitis, a painful disease caused by a sluggish pancreas.  Just getting the diagnosis took several months, so finally learning the source of my pain was a great relief, especially when some samples of Creon (pancreatic enzymes) helped greatly. Then my doctor broke the news that Creon (manufactured by Abbott Labs) costs up to $10 per capsule. No generic version is available. As I need four capsules a day, this drug could cost me nearly $1200 a month, nearly my entire Social Security income! I do have a good Medicare Part D insurance plan that would lower the monthly cost to about $240, but even that is a lot of money for me. I do not qualify for Medi-Cal or other subsidies; the government thinks I have too much money, which I find amusing. (Most of my retirement savings were spent long ago for my late husband’s surgeries and hospitalizations—his bills would have come to more than a million dollars without Medicare--but that’s another story.)
In desperation, I plan to order Creon from a drug company in Canada. That is a clunky, slow process, and possibly a risky one, but it looks as if I can get my medicine for about $50 a month. At this point, that actually seems like a bargain.
Considering the enormous amounts that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising (in JAMA and other medical journals, as well as those irritating TV ads), I think they can well afford to make needed drugs more affordable. Luckily, my illness is not life-threatening, but many people endanger their lives by cutting pills in half, delaying having prescriptions refilled, and by other cost-saving actions. When will Big Pharma and the government wake up and realize they may be killing the geese that lay the golden eggs?