Posted on 06/30/2016 8:46:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A Mississippi state representative suggested that a woman buy her family's diabetes medication after she wrote to him to ask for help with increasing difficulties obtaining Medicaid assistance.
Richland resident Nicole Nichols wrote to the Mississippi House of Representatives Monday morning to voice her concern that children with Type 1 diabetes "aren't getting the necessary diabetes supplies and meds they need to stay healthy."
"We have recently begun having a lot of problems with Medicaid/CHIPS coverage of the essential diabetes supplies needed, not only to keep our kids healthy, but to literally keep them alive," Nichols wrote to Mississippi lawmakers. "No parents should have to fight for so long for their child's essential medical supplies and medical needs when it's explicitly stated as a covered benefit."
Later that day, Mississippi State Rep. Jeffrey Guice, R-Ocean Springs, replied, "I am sorry for your problem. Have you thought about buying the supplies with money that you earn?"(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
“My son was a T1D. The cost of his diabetic medications and equipment was more than $2000 a month. No middle class family can afford that.”
Totally agree. Type I diabetes is a cruel twist of fate (and genetics), and the children who get this deserve help - however it comes. As a society, we are giving entitlements to many people who are either responsible for their own issues (including their own health issues), or who have the capacity to contribute - but don’t. How can anyone justify that, and then let unfortunate children like this fend for themselves?
As an aside, it really shouldn’t cost as much as it does, and there is way too much price inflation involved in this. That’s a separate issue though.
Reason could be as simple as a family plan would be more expensive, and he chose the single person plan. And is letting the State pick up paying for his kids.
Son is Type 2, he buys his meter, lancets and test strips from Walmart along with his med. Test strips are the most expensive of the 3 items, especially when testing 4 times a day, it was worse when he was first diagnosed as he had to test 8 times a day. Test strips are not complicated, and should NOT cost as much as they do, depends on style of meter and how sophisticated it is. Even the simple ones are far higher in cost than they should be. And you have to allow for those that fail in a batch. You can only throw those out as all they will read is error. He shopped around for his testing supplies, to get the most bang for his Co-pays.
Usually diabetics get better medical coverage than non as they can develop so many other health issues that are more costly to treat.
$2500 sounds about right for the RETAIL price. Brand-name insulin generally has a supposed retail price between 300 and 350 dollars a vial, at least according to my mail-order prescription documentation.
That’s what they CLAIM it costs. . . nowhere close to what they actually charge. . .
I have two type 1 diabetic children and I have no idea where she got the $2,500 figure. That’s way too high.
This is EXACTLY why liberals say that conservatives only care about babies in the womb and after they are born they are kicked to the curb. I think the last 10 years or so it’s been true. It is great to worry about a baby in the woman’s stomach but for God’s sake once it’s born we need to at least CARE about the baby.
Again there you are, with reinforcing the lefty stereotypes about conservatives.
Perhaps her father’s company does not offer family insurance.
I was kicked into the marketplace by husband’s employer post Obamacare. My husband would have no issue with a situation such as this. He has a $250 /yearly dectuctible. Mine is $5000.
That is ridiculous, and Republicans have been no help. In fact they are now rooting for Hillary, and they wonder why their base is pissed at them.
>We’re at a crux where medicine has progressed to the point where we can perform miracles, but it’s too cost prohibitive to get those miracles to everybody. The only way out is to drive costs down.<
And therein lies the huge problem. I have a friend who developed T1 diabetes when she was 50. She’s on a pump and the cost is mind-boggling. I’m not sure how our society would go about driving the costs of the supplies down, except with subsidies. And, looking at how subsidies have driven the cost of things like college and hospital costs at large, I think we’re at an impasse. Price fixing would make manufacturers limit their output, which would be catastrophic for patients.
Mississippi ping
Obamacare also changed the disproportionate share funds system. Hospitals used to receive a larger percentage of reimbursement from the government for delivering care to indigent types. Obama care moved that funding to pay for medicare expansion and it doesn’t seem to be helping anyone. Hospitals are still getting their asses kicked worse than ever by the uninsured/under insured types who use the ER as their PCP’s office.
A very rough estimate. The pens are more expensive from what I have been told but I think their ease of use is probably worth it. Good Rx looks like it might be able to tell you what you want to know here.
Thank you for the effort.
The only answer that I can see is innovation and competition.
The problem is that this is usually done with a ‘trickle down’ effect.
Example: VCRs. When they came out, they were unbelievably expensive. Poor people could never afford them at that time. So the rich bought them and that demand pushed forward competition. Gradually, the middle class got in on the game, then the poorest. (My mom’s friend spent more than $1000 on a VCR back in the early 80’s. I bought one in the late 90’s for $15 at Walmart for the kids’ room.)
The issue with medical innovation is that we simply cannot deny people treatment to up the demand in an effort to naturally push innovation. Chemotherapy and insulin are not like a VCR.
So the gov’t subsidizes and keeps the price up. Drug and tech companies go to the gov’t for protectionist status to keep the money flowing in.
Prices are not going down because there’s no need to drop them.
When I gave birth to my daughter in 1991, the cost of an uncomplicated natural vaginal birth was $2,500. Now it’s more than $18,000 on average.
That’s comparing apples to apples. The same service. Back in 1991, it wasn’t unusual for people to pay for their child’s birth out of pocket. Now days, it’s unheard of.
The cost of my son’s insulin doubled over ten years. (The actual cost of the pump did go down as it became more common, but the sets and other equipment did not.)
Our compassion is killing innovation and competition, but I can’t see a clear way out of it.
***Clearly something is very wrong***
Exactly. In the 80’s my father was making $70,000 a yr in a paper mill with excellent benefits and plenty of vacation time. Mother didn’t work and he had 3 kids. And we lived well.
Something is very wrong. It’s called corporate greed and welfare, individual and corporate.
That paper mill is no longer here. In fact we had two big paper mills and their both gone, to China.
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