it's raining viagra
So I got something interesting in the mail today-- and sadly, no, it was not the rejection letter from med school that I have been hoping for. It was none other than a jury summons! It's interesting, I started getting the darn things since I registered to vote at age 18 and they haven't stopped coming...I have literally gotten 1 per year, and a person can only serve once in a two year time frame. There are 2 other adults at my residence who are registered to vote, but do they get summoned? No. The good thing is I can actually show up for once because it's scheduled for the middle of May, when I won't be in class. I look at this as an opportunity to serve the community-- I know, I'm a dork, but it's exciting.
Here-- I have an enlightening story for you. We had a Medicare patient at work today who wanted to come in and get a Lupron injection, which is a medication for the treatment of certain types of cancer. The poor man has no prescription benefits, oh, but you're thinking since it's a treatment for cancer, potentially life saving at that, of course it'll be covered. Wrong-- Medicare will reimburse a maximum of $600 for his dose, regardless of the fact that the medication costs well over $2000 for a dose. I don't even want to know how much he gets in social security benefits, it'll make me sick-- something he was promised would pay off in the end doesn't even make ends meet. Heck, if he was a healthy person he could barely make it, heaven forbid anyone over 65 dare get sick and not have any money to pay for it. If you ever wanted any more incentive to start saving and investing for your retirement-- here, it has been offered.
But what's really interesting is how the behavior of the pharmaceutical companies is causing the outrageous prices of these medications. True, they are entitled to make a profit on a product that they spent millions on and years investing in--this is intrinsic to capitalism. But is it right for them to be able to write off frivolous product promotional expenses?? Hmmm, I'd be willing to bet men would rather just ask their doctor to speed through the "glamorous side effects" of Viagra in a sexy deep voice rather than having a multi-million dollar ad campaign to remind them of their sexual "inadequacies." Oh, and bonus points if the cost goes down $5 per pill. YIKES!!! Does anyone else see where the source of increasing prescription drug costs is coming from? Direct to patient advertising-- hey, why don't we just eliminate physicians entirely? And you don't want to hear about the amount of money these companies spend on schmoosing the docs!! Every Wednesday, our office gets a fully catered lunch, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, costing at least $300-- every WEEK! And we're not even the worst, some offices have drug-rep lunches every day they're in the office. It's sickening.
I'm not saying we need to eliminate tax deductions for business promotion, that would be crazy, but can we say, limit/regulate it a bit more?! I'd take one for the team and give up those lovely lunches if I knew it could decrease the cost of prescriptions for my grandparents and patients in situations like the man in the office today. There's always W's new prescription benefit coming up in '07. We'll see how that works, all I know is these people need something. We all do.
k
Here-- I have an enlightening story for you. We had a Medicare patient at work today who wanted to come in and get a Lupron injection, which is a medication for the treatment of certain types of cancer. The poor man has no prescription benefits, oh, but you're thinking since it's a treatment for cancer, potentially life saving at that, of course it'll be covered. Wrong-- Medicare will reimburse a maximum of $600 for his dose, regardless of the fact that the medication costs well over $2000 for a dose. I don't even want to know how much he gets in social security benefits, it'll make me sick-- something he was promised would pay off in the end doesn't even make ends meet. Heck, if he was a healthy person he could barely make it, heaven forbid anyone over 65 dare get sick and not have any money to pay for it. If you ever wanted any more incentive to start saving and investing for your retirement-- here, it has been offered.
But what's really interesting is how the behavior of the pharmaceutical companies is causing the outrageous prices of these medications. True, they are entitled to make a profit on a product that they spent millions on and years investing in--this is intrinsic to capitalism. But is it right for them to be able to write off frivolous product promotional expenses?? Hmmm, I'd be willing to bet men would rather just ask their doctor to speed through the "glamorous side effects" of Viagra in a sexy deep voice rather than having a multi-million dollar ad campaign to remind them of their sexual "inadequacies." Oh, and bonus points if the cost goes down $5 per pill. YIKES!!! Does anyone else see where the source of increasing prescription drug costs is coming from? Direct to patient advertising-- hey, why don't we just eliminate physicians entirely? And you don't want to hear about the amount of money these companies spend on schmoosing the docs!! Every Wednesday, our office gets a fully catered lunch, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, costing at least $300-- every WEEK! And we're not even the worst, some offices have drug-rep lunches every day they're in the office. It's sickening.
I'm not saying we need to eliminate tax deductions for business promotion, that would be crazy, but can we say, limit/regulate it a bit more?! I'd take one for the team and give up those lovely lunches if I knew it could decrease the cost of prescriptions for my grandparents and patients in situations like the man in the office today. There's always W's new prescription benefit coming up in '07. We'll see how that works, all I know is these people need something. We all do.
k
posted by Kim at 10:11 PM
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