What a disappointing podcast! As the father of a young woman who lives with cystic fibrosis -- annual pharmacy bill = an outrageous and unsustainable $400k per year -- I loved the feisty dad energy of Bob, the guy who went to bat for his daughter with epilepsy over the cost of her drugs. But an episode that does nothing more than advise patients and families about "practical lessons" avoids the elephant in the living room, which is the unconscionably high prices that Pharma firms get away with charging. This is monopoly power at its worst and I look to Organized Money for better insights than just telling dads like me not to lose their cool when on the phone with insurance providers. (Side note: I apologize to no one for losing my cool during such conversations; at some point to do otherwise is to shed one's humanity.) Overall, the subtext of this episode is that in the eternal struggle between Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance, it's the insurance plans that are evil. In reality, the story of prescription drug pricing and prescription drug access is an eternal tale of patients getting caught in the cross-fire between profit-maximizing payors and profit-maximizing payees. Please skip the anecdotes about the chairs on the Lido Deck and do an episode with Merith Basey of Patients for Affordable Drugs.
If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention. But reasonably, what can the author do about the disappointment? 🙁 Some podcasts hit and some don't. (I havent listened...)
So I listen to the Organized Money podcast whenever I can. I appreciated the practicality of this podcast but as a retired Registered Nurse who has worked as both a case manager and a care manager at different times in my career, I listened to this podcast with both appreciation and a clenched jaw.
The people who had trod these circuitous routes to keeping a loved one on meds exhibited both persistence and a capacity for doing the paperwork.
You know those grants for overpriced meds that come from a "foundation"? That's, at least sometimes, an entity such as a foundation funded largely by the drug company. AND the user has to do the paperwork annually. When the recipient is an elderly person, this guarantees a cliff when they may still need the med but lose the capacity to engage in the paper chase. Oh, and I'm sure the Foundation is a nifty write off for someone.
Also in my state, the Federally Qualified Health Care Centers are facing a legislative charge to erode--or possibly it has eroded--the discounts that allow FQHCs to offer lower cost meds. I knew this was underway; I do not know how it ended. Medicaid cuts are also sure to impact the FQHC's because fewer people will get even the meager reimbursement of Medicaid but the patient will still need care which must somehow be subsidized.
This really "The Hunger Games--Pharmaceutical Edition".
We should make pharmaceutical advertisements ILLEGAL because not only are they illegal in the rest of the world, but they stress the F out of me at my age, and they're annoying as hell and I have to constantly mute them. They spend billions on advertising instead of on research and cost controls 😠
For-profit health care is EXTORTION.
What a disappointing podcast! As the father of a young woman who lives with cystic fibrosis -- annual pharmacy bill = an outrageous and unsustainable $400k per year -- I loved the feisty dad energy of Bob, the guy who went to bat for his daughter with epilepsy over the cost of her drugs. But an episode that does nothing more than advise patients and families about "practical lessons" avoids the elephant in the living room, which is the unconscionably high prices that Pharma firms get away with charging. This is monopoly power at its worst and I look to Organized Money for better insights than just telling dads like me not to lose their cool when on the phone with insurance providers. (Side note: I apologize to no one for losing my cool during such conversations; at some point to do otherwise is to shed one's humanity.) Overall, the subtext of this episode is that in the eternal struggle between Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance, it's the insurance plans that are evil. In reality, the story of prescription drug pricing and prescription drug access is an eternal tale of patients getting caught in the cross-fire between profit-maximizing payors and profit-maximizing payees. Please skip the anecdotes about the chairs on the Lido Deck and do an episode with Merith Basey of Patients for Affordable Drugs.
If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention. But reasonably, what can the author do about the disappointment? 🙁 Some podcasts hit and some don't. (I havent listened...)
Practical desperation strategies that the caregiver must have the temperament and time to perform. I struggled with the same...
So I listen to the Organized Money podcast whenever I can. I appreciated the practicality of this podcast but as a retired Registered Nurse who has worked as both a case manager and a care manager at different times in my career, I listened to this podcast with both appreciation and a clenched jaw.
The people who had trod these circuitous routes to keeping a loved one on meds exhibited both persistence and a capacity for doing the paperwork.
You know those grants for overpriced meds that come from a "foundation"? That's, at least sometimes, an entity such as a foundation funded largely by the drug company. AND the user has to do the paperwork annually. When the recipient is an elderly person, this guarantees a cliff when they may still need the med but lose the capacity to engage in the paper chase. Oh, and I'm sure the Foundation is a nifty write off for someone.
Also in my state, the Federally Qualified Health Care Centers are facing a legislative charge to erode--or possibly it has eroded--the discounts that allow FQHCs to offer lower cost meds. I knew this was underway; I do not know how it ended. Medicaid cuts are also sure to impact the FQHC's because fewer people will get even the meager reimbursement of Medicaid but the patient will still need care which must somehow be subsidized.
This really "The Hunger Games--Pharmaceutical Edition".
We should make pharmaceutical advertisements ILLEGAL because not only are they illegal in the rest of the world, but they stress the F out of me at my age, and they're annoying as hell and I have to constantly mute them. They spend billions on advertising instead of on research and cost controls 😠
I think I've heard repeatedly that Big Pharma spends more money on advertising than they ever do on R & D.
Yep, they spend billions and it's paying off. 😠