Wednesday, March 11, 2020

My Medicare Part D Surprise

This is the first time I ordered one of my prescriptions under Part D this year.
SURPRISE !


I just found out I now have a $375 deductible. I've had this plan for 7 years and this is the first year it carried a deductible Meaning I have to pay full price before their crappy tier 3 kicks in. Last year this plan came out ahead by $361.35. Apparently that's not good enough.

So in other words this plan which will cost me $381 this year will now cost me $756 before they even kick in a nickel. I only need one prescription for my emergency inhaler which I keep on hand if I need it. Last year I still at 20 doses left when it expired.

Damned If You Do. Damned If You Don't
Yeah I know what could happen if I dropped it, but it still doesn't diminish the fact this company net profited almost $2,000 off me over the last 6 years for the 6 inhalers I largely paid for myself To top it off they are owned by the pharmacy I go to. In other words they paid themselves. This while I assumed the larger retail cost then they paid wholesale (even without the prior deductibles). So in other words on this particular inhaler they made money coming and going and are looking to make another $375 on top of that. What a racket!

Medicare and my Medigap insurance plan paid a hellva lot of money for my other prescriptions to this pharmacy. And I do mean a hellva lot of money. With the money their pulling in on me alone they could give me a dozen free inhalers a year and still have several thousands of dollars left over. Trust me I'm not exaggerating. I kept track of the figures which proves it.

Before we even consider Medicare-For-All we need to reign in all the costs. Pharmacies, insurance companies, drug manufactures and providers all have a good thing going. Unless we get these costs under control first Medicare-For-All will be impossible to afford. So let's start there. Piece by piece getting these costs under control. If we do there may be no need for Medicare-For-All in the end. Every politician should be campaigning on containment costs before they even dare speak of any other kind of reforms. Now there's something I think we all could support.

Couple Quick Facts
In 2017 U.S. healthcare spending was $3.5 trillion. Another couple of billion each year is spent by taxpayers for drug research with almost half of it benefiting drug manufacturers.

3 comments:

  1. P.S. -

    The Trump Administration has been working on reducing pharmaceutical prices for more than a year already! Costs HAVE been lowered. No need to provide proof because you wouldn’t believe it anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why would I? I have been taking 4 kinds of prescription medications for the past three years. Not only they didn't go down.. they went up. Neither did the wife's go down either. So there's that.

      Delete
    2. BTW the wife takes 6 completely different kinds then mine.

      Delete

All comments are under moderation. Meaning pending approval. If comments are disrespectful or do not address this specific topic they will not be published