Last time I got my prescriptions renewed, I looked at the label the pharmacy gave me. This gave me pause. It is wrong. It is wrong on so many levels. First, I know this is something either the pharmacy or the insurance dictates they put on the label. It is a form of positive feedback to make me think I'm not shoveling money to the company to null effect. Look at how expensive this medication is listed for. $665.89. That's outrageous. First, if I had to pay that out of pocket, guess who isn't getting that medicine? It isn't necessary for me to live. It just lowers a number that might have an effect on my quality or length of life. Maybe. Then the label tells me that the insurance company saved me almost $660. Look how important they are!
You know what the medicine is worth? That $6.48 at the end there. That is what everyone should be paying because that is the real cost of the drug. Most of what we pay the insurance for is to force the providers to give us actual market prices. My favorite example is that a hospital charged us $3000. The insurance said, "No, it is worth $300." We, in turn had to pay out of pocket about $60. Insurance will say that they saved us almost $2940 when really they "saved" us about $240, and that pales in relation to the $$ we and my employer pay to the insurance company each year.
Obama and the dems gave us a republican plan to try to inject the market into health care. They didn't. We still have the gatekeepers controlling the market allowing high prices to still exist. The market of healthcare in this country still doesn't exist. I've only seen a few proposals to actually let market forces work in healthcare. Most are still keeping artificial prices into the scheme. Should government be involved? I don't know. I know what we have is broken. It's been broken for a long time. I think we should rethink a lot of things.
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