Want to talk about your "other" numbers?

Even with decent health insurance I am paying more a month for my daughter’s diabetes supplies & meds than I do for her private school tuition. We won’t even talk about what I paid (am still paying) for our last ER visit!

My parents have insurance, which they pay for, and right now the supplies cost us about 400$ per year, including lancets, pen needles, syringes, insulin, glucagon, test strips. Doctor visits also cost, but I’m not sure how much. We’re having some difficulty getting insurance to pay for the I-PORT.

Hi! I understand your point… When I had No Health Insurance I couldn’t pay for my test strips… So my church and my family took turns buying them for me… I got my insulin for free by using the medical assistance program through Lilly… I was testing four times a day… Now that I have Medicare Part A,B and D, plus I pay for my Kansas Medicaid. I can get my test strips for nothing but I had to get my dr to write a letter to Medicare cuz He wanted me to check my bg more than they wanted… Now I check my my bg 6 or more times a day… I don’t know what brand of test strips you’re using but go to their website to see or ask them if they have a medical assistance program for people who don’t have health insurance… They go by your income and how many people that lives with you… Plus I heard buying them through Ebay is cheaper than the pharmacy… Smile :} :} Hopefully things will work out!

Monthly insurance contribution…$150
Visit to my Endo…$20
3 Month supply of infusion sets (30), insulin (12 vials), & test strips (600)…$175
Free stuff from my Endo that covers what insurance won’t…Priceless

When I started pumping, my Minimed pump and infusion sets cost me nothing, literally $0.00. Is the problem with the insurance companies or the pharma companies? If the pharma companies dropped their prices, the insurance companies wouldn’t have to pay out as much. What do they think we’re gonna do? Abuse the number of tests that we do a day? Believe me, nobody doesn’t love a good finger prick more than I do to let me know where I’m at. Then there’s the whole Preferred, Generic, & Non-preferred angle that they take with the meds. I switched from Humalog to Novolog because instead of it costing me $50 a month, it would cost me $35 a month.

Target and Wal-Mart offer generic prescriptions for $4…less than the price of a value meal! Why can’t pharma companies come out with a generic insulin or generic strips? Could you imagine getting all your supplies for less than the cost of a DVD…

It seems clear by now that a lot of us are having some hard time dealing not just with diabetes but with the cost of the hole stuff. Some countries are doing a great job helping people and others are just making an already difficult situation…worst…

Yes I`d love to have a 5.0 A1C test next time…Are they helping us to achieve our goals with their policy?

Irish tax rates vary considerably depending on your income and marital status, ie single married, double/single income ect, but broadly up to the first 40-60K is standard tax band of 20% and the next higher band for income above that is 42%. We are farmers so this is a tax advantage. The average industrial wage here is 33,000 Euro per annum and Ireland is in the top 3 most expensive European comtries to live in. Where you live in the country has a big affect on affordability as the cost of living in Dublin city is far greater than the countryside. I hope this helps to give you an idea

Wow! After reading the responses here I feel VERY privileged. I pay about $21 USD for a 30 day supply of test strips (FreeStyle Flash) and about $30 for a 30 day supply of Novolog. Until now, I never realized that my employer ( Bristol-Myers Squibb ) provides excellent pharmacy benefits.

Unfortunately not all diseases require drugs for treatment. My wife has a nervous system disease ( fibromyalgia ) and we are now paying out of pocket about $400-600 a month to get the care that she needs. In April she had already used up her physical care benefits for the year.

Right now I’m still covered under my parent’s awesome insurance because I am a full time student. But…I graduate in a year and am really scared of the prospect of losing insurance. In the states, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of protection for people with pre-existing conditions. And, because I don’t qualify for medicare or medicaid, health care is just expensive no matter which way you look at it.

Besides the cost of diabetes, I also have other medications for GERD and gallbladder disease, and just last year had surgery that cost much, much more than tuition at my private liberal arts school. What if surgery comes up again when I don’t have insurance?!?!?

Kelly… Have you looked into a COBRA extension plan for your insurance? When I graduated, I got a COBRA plan for a year and a half, after which time I was employed & could get insurance through my employer. Ask around about options for you… even if it’s expensive, the worst thing would be to need surgery and have a 50k or so bill to try and pay off.

I quit my job when we moved and got another kind of extension plan whose name I don’t remember… so there are options. Best of luck to you!

Yes, I have been looking into COBRA. Just the baseline costs for that alone is scary, though! But, that is looking like the most likely option.

Thanks! -Kelly