The Cost of a Medication

Because I pledged to share it all in 2013, once again, I'll be sharing screen shots from the insurance page.  I often get folks messaging me about the cost of Js med and/or trying to get "retail" price, I had someone today write that something MUST be wrong because 180 tablets of Ditropan XL goes for $800 retail in the US. My insurance company actually gets it under retail, and we are paying less than $800.Our insurance has a contracted rate of $752.Last time I checked, $752 is less than $800 ~smile~.

Restating, our insurance has a contracted price of $752, which has stayed the same for as long as I can remember. We used to pay $131 of that and insurance the rest. Since Obamacare passed in 2010 and started being implemented that year, our copay/portion went up starting 2011. It is now $532. You can see the invoices and the increases of our portion here, here and here. The picture shows a current screen shot from our insurance that shows the contracted price the insurance has for the medication, how much our plan pays and how much we pay. I've shared similar shots in the past, so you can see the contracted rate has not changed:

The problem is a simple math problem. If government forces insurance companies to give people something at no cost to the person receiving the product or service, insurance pays the full contracted amount. They have to get the money somewhere. So they raise what people have to pay for medications not regulated to be *free* by government. They increase premiums. If one million women get the cheap $9 birth control at no cost, insurance pays 9 million a month, 108 million a year for those BC drugs to be given *free*.  And we know not all women will get the cheap BC. *free* abortion drugs and sterilization procedures, too. If insurances picks up the surgical copay for 1 million women, they are going to get the money from somewhere, folks. Increased premiums, copays, deductibles, out of pockets. Nothing is *FREE*. We like our insurance. They've paid $166,000 just for medications this year. Even with our increased premiums, copays, oops.....we are thankful. No government would pay that much for their meds. What's wrong in the equation is government intervention! What's wrong is Obamacare. I believe our copay would still be under $200 without that piece of crap law. And now you know the rest of the story.

GoodRx lists cash retail prices that are much higher than the contracted rate our insurance company receives.  Check out the retail costs here. Remember that if we did not have insurance or my husband made less money, the drug company would give us this medication at no cost to us. I say no cost to us because someone always pays- nothing is ever *free*. 

If my posts piss you off, then you are obviously a liberal. I had a liberal post on my FB page today that I do not represent Catholicism. Well, thanks for that, Captain Obvious. For the liberal trolls following my page and my blog: I don't purport to represent Catholicism. I am a Catholic in good standing, but I do not speak for the Catholic Church. DUH On a side note- the woman who wrote the comment referring to my post on the $532 copay is a heartless wench. Who could be angry when a mother is stating the facts about her kid's life-saving medication increasing from $131 to $532? Only a cold hearted liberal could do that. I make no apologies. I call things as I see them. Liberals are pissed because my family blows all of their Obamacare assertions out of the water. So, instead of trying to help my CHILD, they throw insults my way. Typical liberal compassion for the children of conservatives.