I just went on a road trip. I would have had so much less anxiety about my supplies if I had the freedom in case anything happened to just buy more without pharmacy games, hassles and waiting ??
Its BS I need a permission slip from the medical mafia to buy the stuff that I need to live. It feels like extortion. I have no problem paying for the medicine as I don’t feel the world owes me.
Anyway I need help with the wording. Apparently when these petitions get a certain number of signatures the white house has to reply.
If it’s over the counter, you’ll have to pay out of pocket for it though, at least under our current health care system. So unless that’s changed and/or pricing forced to change dramatically, that move might make insulin even less accessible for many.
Well then you reclassify it as “medicine necessary for life” and cover it . why would we classify it like Advil and melatonin . Thanks. We can add something like that to the petition because I am not buying that excuse.
Sacks of crap play all these games to extract more of our money. I have more respect for the real drug cartels.
Is there actually a way to make insurance pay for OTC meds? I know insurers were thrilled when claritin/zyrtec/allegra were made OTC, because it meant they could stop covering and consumers themselves had to pay for the full cost, no matter how important those meds are to people.
I’m not saying it is the same (although I personally know some people who risk dying without their antihistamines). I’m just genuinely asking if there’s an actual mechanism for insurance companies to pay for OTC meds for life-saving meds—if not, putting some wording in your petition won’t make it so, and turning insulin OTC will make it less, not more, accessible for most. It seems like an important point to figure out before advocating for that change.
I am not buying that excuse. You simply write legislation to have insulin covered. It seems important because they want us to get all stuck in the complicated crap they created. Let people with allergies fight their own battle.
We can call it the Type One Freedom Act or something.
Great, I wish you the best of luck with it! I’ll support that, but there needs to be a clear path toward insurance coverage outlined, before I’d support/endorse wanting insulin to be changed to OTC. And because insurance companies have jumped on making things OTC before as a way to avoid paying for meds, it’s something I and many others may feel caution around advocating.
Also, I’m not disagreeing that it’s a super crappy reason to keep it prescription-based; it’s just a very real one nonetheless. This kind of thing is exactly why we need a system overhaul IMO, so insurance companies don’t have this kind of influence. If you can figure out a way around it, that’s great.
Just so there’s no ambiguity about this: you don’t need a prescription for R and N insulin (Walmart insulin). I remember when they first removed the restriction. Didn’t make a big difference to me since I had insurance, and the stuff wasn’t that expensive anyway, but it was good to know it wasn’t a huge problem if my script lapsed or something. You do still have to get it from a pharmacist, though—they can’t just put it out in a cooler on the health and beauty aids aisle.
Do they cover any pharmaceuticals without one? I’m pretty sure having a prescription is a necessary condition of the pharmacist being able to charge anything to your insurance.
I’m sure it varies. I have a prescription for Omeprazole, which saves me a few bucks, though half the time I just buy it off the shelf. Never had it challenged but my insurance is pretty good. I do know that there are people who actually prefer R/N, or just use it b/c that’s what they’ve always done, and a lot of Dr’s prescribe it at initial dx, especially if they’re just GPs, because that was SOP for decades and it’s a simpler protocol. I’m guessing most of them just have to do a copay, though the stuff’s not very expensive anyway. But I mostly ever hear about it in the context of “Use this stuff if you don’t have coverage because even though it sucks it’s cheap and at least you won’t die.”
Yeah it does vary—I’ve had some things I could fill, and some I couldn’t, depending on insurance plans. They definitely seem happy to deny coverage of more expensive OTC meds in particular in my experience though.
Dr BB when my daughter was dxd 10 years ago, her regimen included NPH. We paid OOP for all supplies the first 7 months. Had I known I could buy NPH OTC at the time, I could’ve saved the $175 per vial at the pharmacy.
Uggh! This shouldn’t ever happen, but then here we are.
I’m not sure when Walmart started selling it—seems like I first started hearing about it relatively recently, like the last 4-5 yrs maybe, so it may not have been available then. But f’rcripesake, when I was using it back in the 80s-90s it was like $30 without a prescription, about the same as Walmart charges now. Can’t believe what they’ll get away with just because they can, even with something as absolutely necessary as insulin for your kid.
