I'm sorry to burden you with such discouraging reality--it's our collective American tragedy and I hope you won't turn your backs in revulsion.
But yes, you should be horrified.
Yes, you should be outraged.
And yes, we all must demand an end to this barbaric system.
Yesterday I was in the hospital, observing, assisting, watching, calling, volunteering, helping out.
What I saw and will report on today was brutal and unacceptable. It is unspeakable that this is occurring in America, the richest country on the planet.
And almost every elected official is responsible for this depraved system. We know who you are. We know who is trying to effectuate change and we know which of you mouth meaningless platitudes and do nothing while Rome burns.
Yesterday it was this poor woman, tomorrow it could be you or me.
But you can be sure of one thing, elected officials with their Rolls Royce health care, have immunized themselves from ever facing the grim realities that the rest of America copes with day-in and day-out.
Many of you know I have a close friend who is an oncologist and surgeon. Yesterday he had a patient with ovarian cancer. By the way, doctors now call this terrible disease ovary cancer.
She was on strong chemotherapy, forgive me I don't know which one, but I can find out if anyone wants to know.
Cancer chemotherapy frequently causes profound nausea. The nausea is treated with medication if the insurance company agrees to pay for it. Remember medical decisions have been taken away from your doctor, now you and I are at the mercy of insurance company bean counters.
My friend wrote a prescription for 5 tablets of Kytril.
Kytril is very expensive. Kytril is so expensive that the manufacturer is offering a $25 Patient Rebate Coupon. http://www.kytril.com/...
Kytril is good stuff if you can afford it or if your insurance company will allow your doctor to prescribe it for you.
This is from the Kytril Web site:
You don't have to suffer from nausea and vomiting (also called emesis) as a result of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Kytril offers you the confidence to control these distressing side effects of cancer treatments. And if you are already experiencing emesis, Kytril may help prevent further nausea.
http://www.kytril.com/
So what happened to this American citizen?
Nothing out of the ordinary. She went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. She was turned down. She returned to the doctor's office sick and in tears. My friend got on a three way call with the insurance company and the pharmacy, after pleading, begging, cajoling, they agreed to give her two tablets.
Now ask yourself why did this happen? I can tell you in one word: COST.
Fasten your seat belt. This is what Kytril costs.
Brand Name (Generic Name) Dosage - Quantity Price Range Compare
Kytril (granisetron) 1mg - 20 tablet $964.10
Kytril (granisetron) 1mg - 60 tablet $2,892.30
Kytril (granisetron) 1mg/ml - 1 vial $213.89
http://www.destinationrx.com/...
The injectable is somewhat more affordable. Could the reason that the injectable has a lower price be the settlement against GlaxoSmithKline just announced by Elliot Spitzer?
GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., Europe's top drugmaker, agreed to pay more than $70 million to settle lawsuits filed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, other state attorneys general, health plans, and consumers who contended they had been overcharged for drugs by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Spitzer filed lawsuits in February 2003 against GlaxoSmithKline, which has a U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, and Pharmacia Corp., accusing them of consumer fraud, commercial bribery, and false statements to government health plans.
Mary Anne Rhyne, spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, said $70 million of the settlement would cover a class action in federal court in Boston filed by individual consumers, health-care plans, and insurers.
New York's Medicaid program will get $1.5 million as restitution for inflated prices of Kytril and Zofran, injectable antinausea drugs used in connection with chemotherapy, and an antibiotic, Amoxil.
. . .The company also settled overpricing litigation or investigations by the attorneys general of New York, California, Connecticut, Montana, Nevada and Arizona and potential claims from 34 other states, including New Jersey and Delaware, and the District of Columbia, Rhyne said.
http://www.philly.com/...
The system is so fucked.
One final thought, shall we see what Kytril costs in Canada?
This is what Bernadine Healy MD, a Republican appointed in 1991, by Bush 41 to be director of the National Institutes of Health wrote in US News and World Report:
Everyone loves Raymond. Raymond Klimczuk of Garfield Heights, Ohio, that is. He's a cheerful, mild-mannered kind of guy. Yet this 49-year-old man is a firebrand on the issue of Canadians getting cheaper drugs than Americans. "How can the exact same medicines in the exact same bottle from the exact same factory be sold at wildly different prices? It's as if a tariff is being put on just because we are Mr. and Mrs. Working America."
. . .During his wife's unsuccessful struggle with ovarian cancer last year, Klimczuk's greatest fear was that he would not be able to afford the drugs to ease her pain and quell her nausea. This son of America's heartland cheers those who board buses in Cleveland to get their prescriptions cheaper in Canada, even if they are technically breaking the law: "Hey, we are not fighting over vacation fares. It's about sustaining life."
. . .But the winds of public opinion are blowing against them. FDA warnings of unsafe, spoiled, and phony medicines are easily seen as disingenuous, since Canada and most developed countries have awfully good drug approval agencies of their own. Also, many of the drugs Americans now consume are made in Third World countries, imported here with the blessing of the FDA. With that in mind, no doubt, the House decisively passed the Gutknecht-Emerson bill this summer, legalizing importation from Canada and elsewhere and instructing the FDA to use new technology to ensure the integrity of such imports. It's now up to the Senate to take action.
What a windfall for Canada. Almost overnight it has a billion-dollar drug resale business with lush profits. Though Canadians are ensured a price negotiated by their government, it's perfectly fine to tack on a tidy sum for others. For example, one two-pill dose of Kytril--the breakthrough antinausea drug Klimczuk bought for his wife--costs $120 here. Canadians pay $31 U.S.; resold to Americans, it's between $44 and $60. As Tommy Janus, pharmacist with mail-order APTECHA Pharmacy in Manitoba, says, "We are beating the U.S. at its own game."
http://www.usnews.com/...
We should really require that all elected officials accept the health care and all the attendant nightmares and atrocities that their fellow citizens endure.