Elana Levin

Big Pharma drives you crazy

You know how frustrated you get when dealing with your fiendish health insurance company? You know, those people that can give you the run around all day, everyday while you try to make one of the most prosperous industries actually provide the service you paid them for (i.e. health coverage)?

Well imagine how frustrated you'd feel if you suffered from a mental illness and were delayed in getting your prescriptions filled because of Big Pharma's latest profits-driven collaboration with the Bush Administration, Medicare Part D.

The Washington Post did a great job describing how delays in receiving needed medications are destabilizing people with psychiatric problems.

"Since the prescription program made its debut Jan. 1, some of the estimated 2 million mentally ill Americans covered because they receive both Medicare and Medicaid have gone without the drugs that keep their delusions, paranoia, anxieties or stress in check. Mental health service providers and advocacy organizations nationwide say they worry that scores are at high risk of relapse. Numerous people have been hospitalized.

"The continuation of medications is absolutely critical to keep them in community living," said Steven S. Sharfstein, chief executive of the Shepherd-Pratt Health System in Baltimore and president of the American Psychiatric Association."

You mean making it hard for people to get needed medicaitions makes them even sicker? How could I have expected Bush to foresee that?

Hey, I know I want to go postal when I find myself caught in limbo with bills or on the phone getting 10 different answers for the same question. Now imagine if you needed mood stabilizers and were waiting in line at the pharmacy just to find out that your Rx wasn't on the drug formulary.
All that suffering is part and parcel of letting Big Pharma write the rules that cover Big Pharma.
Yet we know there are alternatives to this failed situation.

Posted by Elana Levin at February 7, 2006 06:21 AM