Know What the Doc is Giving You

When I get sick I almost always go into Bronchitis and this time was no different. I went to the Doc and sure enough I had a secondary sinus and bronchial infection so he prescribed Bactrim. He asked if I have ever taken Sulfa drugs and to my knowledge I have not so off to Walgreens with a script. Twelve hours later and I look like a lobster but my cough is better. It seems Bactrim is a great drug to prevent patients from developing pneumonia but it has a high sensitivity rate. On a return visit to the doc I got a shot of a steroid to calm the hives and a new script for Levaquin, another kick ass antibiotic that I can tolerate. Here's the sucky thing though. Bactrim cost me $6.67 out of pocket because it's on my health plan's formulary. Levaquin cost me $35.00 because it's not. When I called my insurance company crying foul they said that's just the way it is. So common cheaper drugs that are on the formulary I'm allergic to and the effective not so allergic drugs I have to pay a premium for. That just figures.

Oh and it turns out that if my Doc had known that I was allergic to shellfish he would not have prescribed Bactrim. That little tidbit of info was buried in my file somewhere...

Jefferson and Washington

There is a great, probably apocryphal, story about Jefferson and Washington discussing politic of the new republic and at some point Jefferson asks Washington why we even need a Senate. Washington noticing that Jefferson poured his steaming hot coffee into a saucer asked Jefferson why he did so and Jefferson answered "to cool it." Washington said that is why we need the Senate to cool the legislation. Whether it is true or not the story does a nice job illustrating why we sometimes become so angry at the ineffectiveness of the upper house. Much of what comes out of the House of Representatives is a knew jerk reaction and the Senate does tend to temper it.

Over the past 2 weeks I've written some inflammatory posts about the Democrats being pussies and ineffective even with majorities and maybe that's a good thing. I really want to see change in the health care and it would be nice if it was boiled down to a few key ideas:

1. get rid of pre-existing conditions clauses
2. allow price negotiations on prescription drug costs
3. make health insurance companies non-profit
4. change the fee for service structure

The last 2 will never happen but they are at the heart of what is wrong with health care in the U.S. Physicians and insurance companies blame each other for the spiraling costs and the physicians are winning. Doctors love to create a scenario that they are fighting for your health care rights against the mighty dragon of insurance. I just had a battle like this and felt all warm and fuzzy about my doc. He wanted me to get a prescription that my plan would not pay for and tried to fight 'em. What I didn't think about were the kick backs my doc was getting from the pharmaceutical company. There was a little noticed settlement in September: Pfizer did not admit guilt to kickback charges, but instead paid $1 billion to settle the civil case. Pfizer just happens to make the drug my doc was fighting my insurance company over. I guess it's unfair to assume that my doc was getting a kickback but the Pharmacist told me there are other, safer, generic versions and thought it was "silly" to push for one drug in particular... I ended up with a generic and it works fine and cost me $10 instead of the $289 I would have had to pay out of pocket.

Well, that's a long way from Washington and Jefferson but it illustrates the point that we have a long way to go and there will be a lot of coffee cooling in saucers.

Please comment with what you would like to see your representatives do with health care.