Usually when I pick up my medication from the pharmacy, I only see the co-pay amount. For some generic drugs, the amount is $0. For others, it could be as high as $30 per prescription. For some reason, I see the pharmacy billed amount in my FHA account. I’ve already used up all the money by early February, but I still see pharmacy claims.
Many years ago, I was diagnosed with one case of a-fib. Initially, the cardiologist prescribed Cumadin to thin out my blood a bit so I don’t get a blood clot and stroke. At some point, I was in the hospital and they switched to Eliquis; I took 5 mg of it twice a day. After heart surgery, they kept me on Eliquis but reduced the dosage to 2.5 mg. So every 30 days I puck up 60 tiny tablets of Eliquis. The billed cost from the pharmacy is ~$500 and my work insurance pays $462.47.
Now I understand it costs a lot of money to research, test, and get approval for new drugs but that seems kind of excessive. If I didn’t have insurance, would I be spending $15/day on the one prescription? What if it did prevent a stroke? How much is that worth? Also, how much does the drug cost in Canada or Mexico? I heard those countries pass laws to limit the cost of drugs, which are then passed on to US consumers. If we ever get universal healthcare in the US, would that bankrupt all the pharmaceutical companies since they won’t have US consumers to bill?
Life with chronic diseases 