$100.00 lesson in why we need health care reform NOW

Medco, the online pharmacy provider, wouldn’t send Mr. Maven a new bottle of his prescription of Xalatan eyedrops for his advanced Glaucoma. The reason? That he had enough drops in the remaining bottle to last out the duration of the prescription.

Hmmm.

You see, the problem is that eye drops are rather imprecise. Sometimes they go right into the eye, and sometimes they are a miss and you do it over. So it’s not exactly like a pill.

Glaucoma is a serious eye disease that, if left untreated by daily eyedrops to reduce the pressure that destroys the optic nerve, can cause blindness. So, it’s critical to have enough eyedrops on hand. Mr. Maven has been trying to get Medco to refill this for a couple of weeks now.

He called the insurance company and they said, “Too bad.” They said that Medco had sent a 90 day supply already. Unfortunately, it’s somewhere in the mail. Not in our mailbox. Who knows when it will arrive.

So, he managed to get a local pharmacy to refill the prescription.

The price: $100.00

Yup. This itty-bitty $100 bottle is meant to last 30 days. That’s a quarter lying in front.

Can you imagine having glaucoma and no health care insurance? No prescription drug coverage?

Can you imagine having a more serious disease - like cancer?

And, Republicans think it’s only about tort reform and malpractice caps.

What freaking planet are they on?