Maggie's Farm

Yes, lets add a government mandate to health care!

Then we can get a system as friendly as the IRS, as efficient as homeland security, with folks to second guess your doctor as well as the CIA does with its information, and with subsidies to doctors like the Dept. of Agriculture so we can see doctors cutting hours and taking the month of August off, like in France.

I currently need a medication (which I get through a government health plan, being ex-govvie and all) that is above the normally prescribed dose as my condition is not one that is a naturally occuring phenomena but was due to a previous drug interaction. But my health plan has farmed out the regulation of prescriptions to one of the big pharma spin-offs, and so they will not authorize payment for the full amount.

I need the medication to stay more or less awake and aware during the day and to keep off debilitating and paralyzing attacks (it is a sub-form of narcolepsy). At the prescribed dosage I get an attack every 4-6 weeks... at what the health plan will pay for I get 3-5 per day. Plus further debilitating effects on my mentation and bare minimum energy levels to actually do things during the day.

The kicker is because the wealthy use this as a 'lifestyle drug' Congress has seen fit to put under the schedule IV for medication. There is a high cost overhead on that system, and the price per pill (of which I would get 1 above my health plan) is $5. Per day. Every day.

And this is a good health plan with high ratings and because America is so uptight about drugs and subsidizing health care the cost of everything skyrockets. Which includes the pharmacy due to the necessary *paperwork*.