So…Perhaps jumping the gun as I have not even started taking it yet…But I picked up my Latuda today and as usual, I check to see what “insurance” covered.
FUCK ME WITH A GIANT VIBRATING SPORK OF DOOM!!!!!
With my measly copay, the shit was $796 for thirty pills!
That pharma company consists of bank account/insurance coverage terrorist-rapists!
Unfuckingreal, I am still flabbergasted. I was stunned when the Abilify cost insurance close to five hundred.
And of course, I had tiny tiny copay and insurance covered the rest so why am I having a bitch fit?
Well…I was just raised with this mentality that nothing should cost as much as it does because if you watch enough of “how it’s made” you realize the mark up on stuff.
And there is no bigger mark up than big pharma. It’s close to extortion and blackmail.
I certainly don’t have sympathy for insurance companies but jebus. It’s obscene.
Honestly had I known a few factoids first, correct info which my doctor didn’t quite give me, I would have said hell no to this shit.
He told me it was an antidepressant for bipolar two.
Actually it’s an atypical anti psychotic cross labeled for bipolar one depressive bouts. BIG difference, considering bipolar one is mostly highs. Bipolar two is what needs the heavy duty anti depressants.
And I flat out told Dr B that I have NEVER had a positive response to any anti psychotic, especially the newbies that are cross labeled. I furthermore said, nothing that is going knock me out or make me unable to take care of my kid, sleep too much,or become nauseous.
Surprise….I can get all that and a bag of chips, what a deal.
Fuck.
So I am pissed on multiple levels.
And I know how ridiculous it seems to be ranting about the cost of a med when I ended up paying maybe .01% of it with my copay.
It’s just asinine and criminal for these pharma companies to charge that much. Yes, I know the costs of creating a new drug, the time involved, the studies, the trials…
But nearly eight hundred bucks a month for 30 pills?????Are you out of your fucking mind?
Frankly, I’m stunned my insurance even covered it. Normally, they go out of their way to contradict the doctor and sub the cheapest “similar” med.
God, now I feel guilty as fuck for costing the insurance company that much. And that was just ONE med, though all the others didn’t even add up to $60 out of their pocket.
Latuda best make me piss rainbows and puke rays of fucking sunlight.
And I am NOT tolerating any bullshit side effects. I made myself clear to the doctor and he just blew it off, glossed it over, misrepresented…
Perhaps I’m being all Chicken Little and the sky isn’t falling. It might be my wonder drug of joy, for all I know.
There’s just something about the base make up of atypical anti psychotics that does not get along well with my body.
Seriously, if this shit does help and I lose my insurance coverage because I’m all better…How the fuck could I ever work enough jobs to afford the medication that would make me able to work in the first place?
Do the powers that be even consider these catch 22s?
Just think about it. Latuda is the new “popular” kid in pharmacopia.
Assume everyone, like me, takes one pill a day, 30 days a month.
So on the low side, just say, oh 500,000 patients take it and insurance is paying $800 a month for 12 months.
Do the bleeding math.
Even if it takes five years to cover the development, they still a couple years pure profit before the patent runs out.
So their CEO and stockholders can buy a second home, drive Lamborghinis, and wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills.
Do NOT tell me these companies give a fuck about the well being of mentally ill people. Or any drug manufacturer. Perhaps the scientists who create the meds have altruistic motives but the honchos don’t care if their drug causes rectal bleeding, growing a nipple on your neck, or drives you to hack up a room of geriatrics.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And that may be the motivating factor in so many people’s attitudes toward psychiatric medications. Pills won’t cure us, we’re too weak to try, we just cost insurance a bajillion dollars for the scripts.
I can’t dispute the astronomical costs of these newer drugs.
There needs to be a price cap.
There’s making a profit and then there’s raping people who are ill.
And that is the pharmacological way. They’re not more humane to cancer or transplant patients. You need it, we have it, give us your first born, your still beating heart, and we’ll bill insurance for eight hundred bucks as well as their representatives firstborn.
I am a strong believer in meds, mainly because I get way worse off them and at least get glimpses of stability with them…
But this Latuda thing sent me into orbit. It’s just fucking stupid.
And even if turns me into super stable functioning wonderwoman…The price will still be an act of financial rape. Fuck insurance companies, but pharma as well.
Leave me my generic old school meds. The ones that work, without all the heinous side effects.
I will give the Latuda a whirl, lest it be said I don’t “want” to get better but…Every pill is going to come with a guilt trip.$26.50 a pill.
For that I may as well get illegal drugs that get me high.
Just because insurance pays for it doesn’t make it right.
Price gouging at its finest.
If I am not bouncing off walls, running marathons, and spewing litters of happy puppies in a month’s time…
Fuck this shit. Not worth the guilt.
Honestly it wouldn’t matter if it were a med or an electronic device costing too much. I’m frugal to the spleen and expensive shit doesn’t mean it’s any better than cheap shit.
Jebus, I paid three bucks for shampoo and felt like I was splurging and I only did that too soothe my irritated scalp.
Seven hundred ninety five bucks for 30 pills?
What the actual fuck.
I wonder how many lambs were sacrificed in the satanic ceremony that leads one to being a pharma boss.
