This is Juan’s Mom, have you tried a prescription mail service, I use Liberty Medical and its very affordable, I spend about $50.00 for 3 months supply on my sons Insulin and he uses 2 bottles a month for his insulin pump
OMG! A week of training w/ a diabetic specialist nurse and diabetic special dietiion!!! I got 1 hour minutes w/ a nurse in the hospital (she was a friend of a friend, so I got “special treatment”)…and about 30 minutes w/ a nutritionist (who gave me handouts).
We also have the insurance problem of them wanting only to pay for 4 strips a day and the doctors (if you find a selfless one who will spend his time filling out paperwork) begging for more if you are a new diabetic or beginning an exercise program, etc., ad nauseum.
And…I had good insurance! for the USA.
The AMA had a recent study that compare outcomes and found that the UK had better outcomes, even when you looked at rich US citizens. The crisis based system of the US had worse outcomes even for the most wealthy. The wholistic approach–the family practitioner, who knows the whole person/patient–was most effective.
Thanks, me too! We treat health care/insurance as a commodity instead of a right. It is bizarre.
Thank you! This will help me compare prices!
Thanks for your insights.
There really is no safety net in the US.
My endo is also a diabetic, so he knocks himself out w/ longer visits than is typical (or reimbursed by insurance).
I wonder how the life expectancy of minorities and poor in the United States vary from the average life expectancy. Actually, I know the answer. There is a big gap in life expectancies for minorities v. whites and poor v. rich. Our average may be high, but that’s because the wealthy live into their eighties (and nineties). Poor folks, not so much.
There is no way to guarantee all people enjoy the same level of prosperity and good health regardless of income level or ethnic background. We can certainly make improvements in our health care system to provide better outcomes for more people and I support that wholeheartedly. I’m not sure what you are driving at, specifically. There certainly is more to the issue than what color your skin is or how much money you make per year. What is the use in simplifying the equation by only looking at a couple of obvious criteria? You cannot craft a practical, good solution that way.
Dear People.
I would not worry too much about levemir vs lantus they are about the same in action after fine tuning. The old insulin that was bad news was NPH that is s==t. Had about a 6 hour duration.
Wow a diabetic Endo, this must be heaven a Doctor that will actually hear what you are saying and believe it. You lucky gal. There is no safety net in the Nazi part of Canada called Alberta.
At that very small dosage levemir will be much less expensive since in comes in 300 unit cartridges. So a pack of 5 will last 5 months. the 1000 unit vial of Lantus is supposed to be discarded after 28 days after opening.
Hi Elaine,
I use 10 units daily & don’t go through a whole vial either (thank goodness), but Lantus still expires in 28 days either way.
The USA and our Nazi province here in Canada called Alberta are hyper anti-communist. Actually our province provides free foot amputations for the diabetics but free insulin never.
In the US, Viagra is covered by many health insurance plans, but not birth control pills. Guess that tells you about priorities & who makes the rules. Probably more research spent on penis problems, too:)
I’m with Elaine, it’s bizarre.
Well, treating erectile dysfunction and preventing pregnancy are not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything alike. Birth control pills are covered to a great extent by many health insurance plans, but they do not usually treat any specific health problem.
Imagine if the government decided that the professional service, or product you produce with your talent and experience was suddenly a right to be enjoyed by everyone else. How do you take the fruit of someone’s labor and declare that everyone else in that person’s society has a right to it, regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay for it? Health care is no different than other professional services. That is, it is delivered by people who desire to profit from marketing their skill.
It is easy to address just one side of the equation by declaring that everyone has a right to health care. It is much more difficult, but necessary, to figure out how to actually make that work without forcing someone to work for less than what they believe is a fair price if you want to provide “free” health care to all people.
They actually do in a lot of cases. My cousin took them for severe endometriosis, and my coworkers daughter has to take them to control the development of ovarian cysts (for which she has had numerous surgeries). So they are actually medically necessary and still not covered by all plans.
I was on birth control pills for a medical condition. My insurance didn’t cover this prescription despite a letter from my gyno explaining why it was medically necessary. To me, this is a gender bias.
I live under and benefit from a national health care system. Prices are not lower here than in the USA. It’s just that the price is paid for by the National Health Insurance.
When I buy my insulin, I can see on the receipt two numbers:
(1) the amount paid by me (about $2)
(2) the amount paid by the government (a lot more)
I checked once and the price of Humalog paid by the government was the same as if I purchased it in the USA. Same with my pump. I pay 15%, the National Health Insurance paid 85%. But Minimed got the same amount of money from my pump purchase as they did from yours. So the companies are not suffering.
How is this financed? Through a special tax. Now here we can disagree. Employed people pax 7% of their income into the National Health Insurance fund. People who do not have income must pay ~$25 a month into the system, unless they are receiving social benefit like pension, unemployment, or some others. Clearly the rich pay MUCH more into the system than the poor.
But when I first qualified for the system (I am not Hungarian, but qualify through marriage), I was shocked. I went through the whole process of getting insurance without ever being asked a health question. I got my insurance card and my right for free insulin based on being considered part of the Hungarian society, not based on my “health risk”. They did not ask because in this system it does not matter.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both. I don’t suggest that the Hungarian system be implemented in the USA. The USA lacks the social solidarity that allows this system to exist here and it would be too big of a jump.
But I think that we can all agree that reform is needed in the US health care system.
If you are interested in these topics, then I suggest that we continue in another thread where there has been very civil debate on this topic:
Who should pay for our health care?
That is why I said, “usually”. Clearly, if they are prescribed to treat a health problem then they should be covered differently than if they were an elective item.