drug costs

[Guest guest]

Hi guys

Have been reading some of the posts about the costs of drugs, and can

certianly sympathize. My co-pays alone are over $500 per month, not

including doc visits which puts it somewhere north of $750 plus my 20%

until I top out at $2500 for the year not including prescriptions,

needless to say this becomes alot of money, on the other hand my bill

last year topped $85,000 not including another $20k or so for my wife

and son and we paid out a little over $5000. Could we afford the

$5000? NO! But thats still a pretty small percentage of the total bill.

Right now we just got approved for me to go on Enbrel along with my

Methotrexate and weekly Solumedrol infusions and all the other drugs.

The Enbrel is a weekly injection given at home to the tune of

$1500.00 per month!!! Now Im no fan of big insurance companies but

mine approved this without much of a hitch for off label usage, (just

about anything for Sarcoid is off label since nobody and I do mean

nobody has heard of Sarcoid), but as soon as my Rheumy dispatched a

letter explaining the benefits of anti inflamatories for Sarcoid

sufferers they said ok, and at this level of benefit thats not bad!

So for my $25.00 co-pay they pump out another $1475.00 per month, and

remember that not including the other $500 per month in other meds.

Maybe our system needs some help, for instance getting a handle on the

number of co-pays a chronic illness causes for an average income

household among other things, but have you ever had a chat with some

of our brethern, (Sarcoid sufferers) from Britin or Canada, you know

those places with the wonderful government run plans that wait months

and months for tests or procedures and cant get in to see specialists

even when they have life threatening illnesses? You might want to

think about these things before you allow the government, (you

remember them, the ones that pay $500 for a toilet seat) to take over

something so complicated and so important to us all.

It would probably be worth asking the simple question, if these

countries and others like CUBA are so great and their medical systems

are so much better than ours why then do all the rich and powerful

from those countries come to the US for their care??? And why do

doctors from all over the world, most notably from those countries,

come here to get their training before going home to practice medicine?

seem like reasonable questions

dont you think

Just for what its worth.

God bless and have a great day!!

Stu