i know, i don't talk politics. there are plenty of blogs out there who do so, and i'll leave it to them to discuss things. however, i had to talk about this.
My mom is 78. she is on medicare. while the prescriptions she gets are expensive, she can afford them (she's on 7 or 8 meds, i can't remember right now (look at the time, please!)). however, i think she should take advantage of the prescription drug plan. there comes the rub. i put it off for a while, because she wasn't worried about it, and i havne't had tons of time to investigate. now i know why. apparently, there's this corollary, which, after april 1, allows the insurance companies to add or drop meds as they see fit, after having been frozen since october 2005 (and this benefit didn't become available til jan 1, so half that time was lost!). and they can do this on a monthly basis!
i went to the website so i could see if i could figure out which ones to at least present to my mom. my mom has a computer, but mostly uses it to play solitaire. i dont' think she's ever gone online voluntarily by herself. i entered all the meds i could recall (7) and clicked on the find formulary. and up popped TWENTY-SIX different companies. and this is with 7 meds! can you imagine if it were with 2 or 3? and the disgusting part was that none of them have any kinds of links to which pharmacies they cover! now, how am i supposed to help my mother make an informed decision when i can't get all my information? i don't want to do eeny meenie, and mess things up for my mom. what the fuck do i do? GAH! and i thought i had a headache before!
i suppose the political part of this is the fact that it sounds distinctly like this was mismanaged from the gitgo. and it's not getting any better/easier. and most of these people don't have access to a computer, to help ease their decision making. i did use the website, and was still thoroughly confuzzled.
i like to think i am a semiliterate person, and can navigate your standard website with much alacrity, and little angst. hah. bullshit. (dare i say it?)BLARNEY!
these fuckwits have a bajillion choices, with a trillion options per choice. fuck me to tears, this is insane! i've read reports that while many people want bush to shove off the deadline past may 15, he's refusing because he thinks "it will all work out in the end (paraphrase, gang)." obviously, he's not depending on this to cover George #1 & Barbara. i wonder if we got up a letter-writing campaign, it would work. who's game?
because this crap is getting gamier and gamier by the second.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
What a mess. Call your state and U.S. representatives' offices and demand help. They should have a local office nearby.
Assbeagles - all of them!
*Comment was inspired by breakfast with Itgirl!
Walgreens I think will do a search for you and tell you which plan fits you that they work with...maybe your local pharmacy will do the same thing.
Wow - bureaucracy! American health cover (or lack thereof) is totally weird to us Aussies.
Haven't been by for a while - I love this off the cuff comment you made a while ago:
"although i think i'm beginning to understand why some species eat their young." LOL
medicare coverage has improved very little despite all the talk talk talk and "new initiatives" such as the prescription drug plan. it may as well be written in klingon for the degree that i can decipher it. however, i know that the walgrrens folks (as trixie noted) have a progrma to look at your medical problmes and list of meds and decide which plan fits best with your needs, and it can't hurt to check it out. as for deadlines, i don't know much about that. one other problem is the differences in eficacy of some medications when switching between brand name and various generic formulations, now they are all supposed to be the same, but there may be significant differences in pharmacokinetics and how the patient responds to them. (of course not all meds and not all people but something to be aware of if suddenly your blood pressure medicine no longer works as well as it used to)
sorry i apparently cannot spell worth crap today, forgive the errors in the prior post
you said a lot of bad words in this post. ;)
totally understandable... nothing worse than bureaucratic smartasses holding information hostage so folks give up on the program... sheesh.
Post a Comment