The parents of a 22-year-old Wisconsin man who died after an asthma attack have filed a lawsuit against Walgreens and UnitedHealth Group’s pharmacy benefit manager after they said the price for his medication suddenly rose from $66 to $539.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
I buy inhalers for a pet here (same humans use), because it wasn’t covered by insurance. Maybe some people need to use it for themselves now. For mine the manufacturer was still Klaxo/Smith (I think) but it was the Australia/New Zealand branch. Usually took 4-6 weeks. https://www.inhousepharmacy.vu
I hope so too, that place was the only way I could get it. $400-600 for inhalers in the US, they sent me the same thing for around $60 each. I was so upset when I realized someone without insurance couldn’t afford to breathe. Didn’t imagine it would get this way with insurance still paying for it.
Wait until ACA is reversed.
There will be many such asthma deaths when their insurance companies will be allowed to refuse to pay for treatment for any pre-existing condition. My whole family takes asthma meds & we are terrified. It would cost us more than $2000/month just for asthma meds.
Have your checked Mark Cuban’s Cost plus drugs - while he doesn’t carry them all he only charged a 15% mark up and shipping ( $5)
But it is cash only no insurance.. And you can request it be notified if they don’t carry it now but add in the future
Thanks, I did. They are an amazing option for people. Right now we have excellent insurance coverage. But I looked up how much it would cost using cost plus & good rx if ACA is reversed. My number didn’t even cover other meds. Many families will face this. Asthma is so common but Advair is expensive
Yes many who have employer healthcare plans that also don’t deny coverage for pre existing conditions are unaware that the reason Medicare was created was seniors who lost that employer insurance were being denied or charges premiums they couldn’t afford on fixed incomes..The same for ACA..
This is happening with a lot of drugs lately. My family members medication in a few months went from $35 one month then to $100, then this month to $230. All for the same medicine.
I wish Kamala had won , Joe had just started bringing drug prices under control. I’m pretty certain we’ll be back to “you only get to live if you have enough money”.
😢Poverty's a now a weapon. How do people that voted for this kind of greed sleep at night? Do they think for a moment that Trump or the GOP for that matter would ever make basic life saving medication affordable to everyone. Or do they want to cull the poor for the plutocrats too?
As someone from the UK, I can only stare in disbelief at the fact that anyone has to pay $500 for an inhaler!
American healthcare is so shocking and we have idiot politicians over here who want to take us down the same road...🙄
We had to pay $9000 (after insurance) for an afternoon go home the same day from hospital) heart procedure - plus nearly $8000 in annual premiums plus over $1000 in medications and $8100 for dental work during 2024. I hate it here.
I don't know what to say! It's just almost impossible for me to get my head around. Seriously, how does anyone manage? I've been treated for cancer, heart problems,etc, and I never had to pay. I'd be dead if not for the NHS.
I wish you well and hope things get better for you. 💖
Oh thank you. It's so difficult. 70% of bankruptcies in U.S. due to medical bills. Also the U.S. has no maternity leave so you have to pay for hospital and missed wages by using savings, vacation time, short-term disability and so on. Typical time off work for women is 6-10 wks...even w/C-section.
And the idea of people going bankrupt because they're sick is just alien to me. The whole system needs to be changed, it seems humans are only valued for the money that can be made from them. It hardly seems like 'the home of the free', you're only free if you're rich. UK is heading the same way. 😭
WHAT? That's just insane! No maternity leave? I had no idea about that, I can't get my head around it. I'm so grateful to our NHS. I'd have been dead at 15 if not for them, cancer and after, v difficult birth, hit by a taxi, the list goes on 🙄 I simply can't understand how you cope. I'm so sorry 😭
You pay for it via higher taxes on your income but definitely helps when all are sharing the costs and the wealthy in UK pay the most— unlike here where the GOP has given 50% tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals & corporations…😔
I lived in the UK and my taxes were not much more than in the US. If you adjust for what I paid for (crappy) health insurance it definitely evened out ie $500 a month. And I was never “rejected” for meds or care in the UK nor went bankrupt.
Our system of employer coverage benefits the corporations that get the tax write offs for doing so.. The problem lies that when that coverage stops many seniors ( and others) with pre existing conditions were denied any coverage- and why our Medicare was created.
My ‘Cadillac’ employer insurance plan cost me 400 a year while employed- yet the retiree plan cost for the same plan was 900 an month until you turned 65 and then 500 a month after you sign up for Medicare… for a healthy person with no pre existing conditions..
And for those with preexisting conditions insurance companies could easily deny coverage once they were not under the employer blanket coverage.. Why Medicare & ACA was created here to prevent that denial of insurance..😔
That’s fucked up and frankly evil. And people wonder at the response to the killing of the healthcare ceo? I’m not happy he died. He was a human with a family. But so was this poor young man. Whole life ahead of him. We are not even third world with this shit. We need basic healthcare for all.
It’s factoring in lawsuits like this in the cost benefit analysis. Kind of like when a company would rather let ppl die and get sued than do a huge recall because the former would be cheaper
I learned that corporations who have more than 50’employees face fines if they do not offer insurance to their employees… Maybe why they haven’t gotten rid of of that too since their taxes have been cut in over 50% for the wealthiest corps since 1981
1980 top Corp tax 46%-today 21% soon to be 15
Agree.. Another reason why the fines that the DOJ and FTC assess when caught.. if they make more than the actual fines it is worth taking that risk and still making profit.. The penalties need to be higher to deter that behavior before not after they get caught.
Also depends on it they have an active patent that allows them to be sole distributors for a certain period of time before generic versions can be offered ..
This happened to me several years ago. I cannot remember the name of the insurer, but it was a big name through my employer. I was notified that they would no longer cover my asthma inhaler and out of pocket cost was almost $500 for each one. Fucking murderers.
Comments
https://www.inhousepharmacy.vu
There will be many such asthma deaths when their insurance companies will be allowed to refuse to pay for treatment for any pre-existing condition. My whole family takes asthma meds & we are terrified. It would cost us more than $2000/month just for asthma meds.
But it is cash only no insurance.. And you can request it be notified if they don’t carry it now but add in the future
And "enough" is going to be a bigger number weekly.
American healthcare is so shocking and we have idiot politicians over here who want to take us down the same road...🙄
I wish you well and hope things get better for you. 💖
https://www.propublica.org/article/medicare-tax-loophole-steve-cohen
But you can damn well bet the billionaires don’t go without medication.
Rumpy will make sure MANY people will die (poor people) from lack of medication 💊 #FOTrump #FOMusk
1980 top Corp tax 46%-today 21% soon to be 15
https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386.htm
Check this out...
https://youtu.be/KVjrtgpJti4?si=IH3LEt8mSTJtmZKV