It Was a Sad Experience

 I went to the pharmacy yesterday to pick up a new prescription for my wife. It was phoned in the day before. Freezing rain was predicted later in the morning so I drove the 15 miles to pick it up before things got slick. It wasn’t ready so I sat in the waiting area while they counted pills and got insurance authorization. It seems everyone else who needed a prescription filled had the same idea. I say and watched while several folks picked up their prescriptions and walked to the front to pay. A couple of minutes later they would be back with the same question. 

“Why is this so much more than last time?” 

The pharmacist provided a variety of answers. New year new deductible. The price of the drug went up. Blah, blah, blah. It basically came down to it is what it is. It then became what can you afford? He would then dispense the number of pills they could afford. In some cases a couple of weeks worth instead of a month. What happens in two weeks? They do the dance again? They try to stretch those medications to last a month? These were all middle aged folks. We live in a very rural area of western Illinois. The kind of area where you drive 15 or 20 miles to get to a town of less than 5,000 with places like a grocery store and a pharmacy. If you want to get to a larger city- Quincy, Peoria, Springfield for example, the drive is 50+ miles. Factory jobs? Most of those left the area in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Those job losses took with them the insurance benefits they provided for thousands in the area. So, far too many do the tough walk at the pharmacy. They walk from the pharmacy clerk to the front register and back to the pharmacy clerk. They try to figure out what they can afford while keeping their household fed, clothed and sheltered. 

That folks is the sad state of healthcare in America. They need the medications to live. They don’t want to die and struggle just to survive. We can and should be better than this.