I just saw an article in the Washington Post that says ANOTHER drug company has agreed to pay beaucoup bucks -- from their "cash resources" to resolve challenges related to their bad practices.

This time it is Glaxo Smith Kline, for Avandia, a diabetes drug, and the payout is a record $3 BILLION. Glaxo to Pay $3 BILLION

At the same time that I read this, I am struggling to figure out what program Steve and I will be using for next year's health insurance plan. If we keep the same program we had last year, the cost will go up 10.5%!! And my agent tells me this increase is solely based on medical inflation AND has nothing to do with how much we used our insurance last year, or our ages.

Of course, I'm pretty sure that one reason our drug costs are skyrocketing is that the drug companies look to us consumers to bankroll those outrageous payouts!

Anyone have any idea how to put a stop to this? As it is, health insurance is the largest line item in my personal budget...

IMHO health insurance is the biggest line item in everybody's
personal budget. I've no prescription coverage, no dental, no eye exam, no eyewear coverage, and plenty of copays. The only coverage I do have is urgent care and emergency care. I have Independent Health; hubby has BC,BS. We pay our own coverage every three months. And we'd have to be dying to take advantage of coverage!

Okay, getting back to your original post here, Anne, just think of it. 1 billion equals 1000 million. The brain can't even comprehend a sum that huge. So 3000 million is out there in
outer space somewhere. Good grief!

It's an unfathomable number, Jabber. And I had high hopes that Obama's efforts were going to REDUCE our health care costs, not INCREASE them.

And, since the Social Security Administration DID announce a COLA -- Cost of Living Adjustment -- for 2012, I am aware that the official word is that our market basket costs increased in 2011. We all know that, just from looking at the shrinkage in what a dollar buys at the grocery store these days.

Now I'm no economist or financial whiz, but when the Fed's COLA increase is a mere 3.6%, a 10.5% increase in my costs for health care seems onerous.

I am recommending to Steve that we scale back the health insurance program we select for 2012, so that we can bring our health insurance increase back more in line with that 3.6% figure.

Like you, as self-employed business owners, we pay 100% of our health insurance expenses. I think we're both pretty healthy - knock on wood.

But "healthy" is a trickier word as we all continue to age.

So many of the health challenges we Boomers are encountering with aging are chronic. With challenges like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, or even something as major as a heart replacement, it seems that as long as one takes their maintenance drugs - (or in the case of the sleep apnea, uses their PAP machine when sleeping) - you're "cured" and pretty much able to live a full life. Lose the access to the maintenance drugs and the picture dramatically changes.

Wasn't the news this week about the unavailability of some drugs really scary? Locally, one Iowa TV news station interviewed a woman who had a heart replacement 10 years ago. She talked about going to Walgreen's to get her prescriptions refilled for the month, and being told that some of them would not be available for a month!

She told the pharmacist she would not be ALIVE in a month. Being as Walgreen's is a big place, they called around to other pharmacies for her, but to no avail.

Eventually she contacted the University of Iowa hospitals and was able to drive to the hospital in Iowa City to get her meds. But it was a 180 mile trip.

And based on what she's been told, she's worried that it is a trip she'll have to make again in a month.

YIKES! What is our country coming to? That sounds like story from a third world country...

Anne

Well this is all due to O'Bamas health care plan. Seems he didn't tell us the truth concerning it either...!

Sorry Chatty, I have to politely disagree with you.

I haven't seen anything anywhere that tells me outrageous drug company profits and/or drug scarcity is related to Obama's health care plan. After all, whatever remains of THAT won't even go into effect for a couple of years.

And as for skyrocketing health insurance costs, there have been double digit increases in my health insurance premiums for at least the past five years. THAT is why I was so hopeful that Obama's health care plan would change things.

Drug companies' profits have been outrageous for years. Why is it that the same drugs we pay an arm and a leg for here are cheaper in countries where everyone has health care coverage at little or no cost? Back when Medicare Part D went into effect, there was no effort to make the drug companies charge less. The VA is able to negotiate for lower drug costs, if I remember correctly, so why can't Medicare or any of the other Insurance companies?

I totally agree with you, Yonuh! A few years ago I found out that a lot of these drugs are hugely cheaper in countries like Canada.

That's why we see online companies selling prescription drugs for much less than we can buy them for at the drug store. Many of these companies are working out of other countries, and actually still making a profit in the process.

It's also why we can order our prescriptions through mail order pharmacies for significantly less. (Some of us have insurance companies that make us buy our prescriptions from these ail order pharmacies.) But I still prefer to go to my local pharmacy, where they know me and call me by name when I walk in the door, and where I have a personal relationship with the druggist.

I have a step-sister who is a pharmaceutical drug rep, and I can tell you, she got into that business because it pays so well. (You know, her job used to be merely to call on docs and give them samples, then schmooze them with meals and drinks, gifts, trips and such.)

I'm not sure if all of that is still legal, but whether it is or not, the drug companies are still budgeting a TON of money to advertise their drugs on TV and in magazines, in order to suggest to us CONSUMERS what drugs will solve our problems.

All in an effort to convince us to ASK our docs to prescribe the stuff to us.

Clearly there is a huge profit markup in drugs, or they could not afford to do this.

I'd rather have cheaper drugs, but then again. If the drug companies aren't funding the media, who will assure that we still have free TV channels?

It's a deep problem, ladies...

I agree about the advertising, Anne. Even PBS has commercials although it's between programs and not during. It's a dilemma to be sure. I don't remember when drug companies started advertising - used to be they couldn't; same with lawyers. Now there's no telling what you will see advertised on TV!

I can buy a certain medication from Canada for about the fourth of the cost I can buy it here in the USA. And IMHO
methinks the drug companies give the doctors a kickback to use
their products. Can't swear to it; just sayin'!