Last week marked 11 years of living with ms. And it was my niece's second birthday. All of it, everything, what a momentous month, July!
I am a little frustrated by congressional progress causing health insurance reform and health care reform. That should be disprogress or unprogress or illprogress? I have great insurance and I want everyone to have great insurance too, everyone to get quality affordable healthcare when they need it.
Where are the North Dakota populists? Will Montanans again elect Max Baucus in 5 years? Montana deserves better representation.
I am sending another message to NMSS activists. We need to visit with our elected members of congress, to sensatize them to the needs of patients. Sensatize...
Last week started with this news: • Research links broken marriages with chronic health problems
I've met all kinds of people in different kinds of 'marriages' since I began living with multiple sclerosis. I have met people who have remained in a bad / dysfunctional marriage in order to continue to stay on a spouse's health insurance. I have met people who have remained "legally" married in order to continue to stay on a spouse's health insurance, even though the couple really isn't a couple anymore, living separate lives. I've met committed to each other couples who are legally divorced (but they wear rings), even with kids in the house, so that the person with multiple sclerosis can absorb the huge medical debts and declare bankruptcy so as to not destroy the family. Our country needs Health insurance reform, health care reform.
I think there are counselors who will sometimes recommend legal divorce to help keep people together if one of the spouses has a catastrophic medical condition with ever mounting debts (then bankruptcy).
I have been posting this message variously (and people are actually visiting this blog):
My medicine that cost $960 per month in 2002 now costs $2800 per month. The medicine hasn't gotten more effective. The U.S. patent expired in 2007. The drug is owned by Bayer Pharmacutical and in Germany, a person can buy a more inexpensive generic. The reason there is no generic is because the FDA has not been empowered to license generic "biological" drugs. Please ask Rep. Baldwin to support HR 1427, which would help create a pathway for safe generic biological drugs. You can call representative Baldwin at (608) 257-9800; she sits on the congressional committee handling this. Please ask her to support HR1427 -- for too many people, their insurance requires them to pay a percentage of their prescription as a co-pay, sometime as much as $900 per month for their medicine affecting who might even get the medicine s/he needs. We don't have PHARMA's radio and tv budget (if you seen/heard the recent PHARMA ad blitz) -- you can help make a difference for thousand of ill people and yourself because this is one of the reasons your insurance is getting so expensive. Thanks from a Middleton neighbor.
Talk to your member of congress. Our country needs Health insurance reform, health care reform.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
You could be one illness from bankruptcy
Did you call your Senator yet at 888-436-8427? [Support a public insurance option!] In 2007, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies filed across the country were linked to illnesses, loss of income or high medical bills, according to a survey published in June by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University. Of those cases, 78 percent of the debtors had health insurance when they first got sick.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Catch up
I ran 2 and a half times around the pond today, like the 5th or 6th time since the spring high-water. I've been inspired and its proving a good way to work stuff off. So I am at the computer now, feeling good in my "Extra Vigilant" t-shirt.
I've joked, "all the cool people are getting diagnosed with ms". I've known Will Hart has been living with ms for a while and he recently shared his diagnosis in an interview. I gave him my "join the movement" t-shirt a while ago via a mutual friend. There are a handful of bands that generate a sound that can create the audible sensations of ms at very loud volumes. Will Hart is a member of the Olivia Tremor Control, a band the can induce such sonic sensations. I have been a fan of the Olivia Tremor Control since their music accompanied long distance drives across Montana and their single, "New Day" appeared on my mix for the moving drive back to Wisconsin.
Now if you like that "New Day" song, go buy the album "Black Foliage"!
I've joked, "all the cool people are getting diagnosed with ms". I've known Will Hart has been living with ms for a while and he recently shared his diagnosis in an interview. I gave him my "join the movement" t-shirt a while ago via a mutual friend. There are a handful of bands that generate a sound that can create the audible sensations of ms at very loud volumes. Will Hart is a member of the Olivia Tremor Control, a band the can induce such sonic sensations. I have been a fan of the Olivia Tremor Control since their music accompanied long distance drives across Montana and their single, "New Day" appeared on my mix for the moving drive back to Wisconsin.
Now if you like that "New Day" song, go buy the album "Black Foliage"!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Gearing Up!
I am looking forward to this year's Legislative Affairs Day, March 5th at the State Capitol. Close to 100 people from across Wisconsin will gather together against Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I think that every year we are even more effective than the last as more people travel to Madison to share stories and advocate together.
At our first Legislative Affairs Day, five years ago, we successfully secured the money to fund MS screenings for Wisconsin women through the Wisconsin Well Woman Program. The majority of people living with MS are women. This legislative accomplishment was made possible by Wisconsin volunteers who visited legislators and shared their stories about MS.
I look forward to talking to my Representative and State Senator this year about the problem with allowing "Tier 4" insurance drug co-pays to exist in Wisconsin. Tier 4 drugs include biological drugs scientifically proven to reduce the incidence of MS disease activity in people living with MS. My interferon drug, Interferon-B, now costs $2600 per month. Tier 4 co-pays are typically 25% or even 33% of a drugs costs.
For a person living with MS, who has Tier 4 drug co-pays in his/her insurance plan, s/he can have an $850 out-of-pocket expense -- that's like a mortgage on a modest home in many Wisconsin towns.How free is this person? Can't go shop for a different policy because no insurance company will sell him/her one. People who need this medicine to keep moving (and working and staying optimally productive) need it affordable or too many will decide to stop using it. And some will find themselves bound to a job, for only insurance that covers necessary healthcare services.
Tier 4 drug co-pays are a recent development in health insurance. Insurers are increasingly offering health insurance with Tier 4 drug co-pays as a way to "control costs" [for them]. Plans with Tier 4 drug co-pays cost less. Employers that provide employee insurance, looking for a way to "control [the] costs" might seek to save money [for themselves] and buy this insurance. Maybe your employer has already announced that your health insurance has changed?
Employers have an economic interest in buying health insurance that include a Tier 4 prescription drug plan. If you do not have a health insurance plan with Tier 4 prescription co-pays and you use a biological drug, you are lucky -- for now, but be aware you could be next!
I'm going to Legislative Affairs Day to advocate to end Tier 4 health plans in Wisconsin. We need to end Tier 4 -- there needs to be a cap on how much out-of-pocket any drug costs.
At our first Legislative Affairs Day, five years ago, we successfully secured the money to fund MS screenings for Wisconsin women through the Wisconsin Well Woman Program. The majority of people living with MS are women. This legislative accomplishment was made possible by Wisconsin volunteers who visited legislators and shared their stories about MS.
I look forward to talking to my Representative and State Senator this year about the problem with allowing "Tier 4" insurance drug co-pays to exist in Wisconsin. Tier 4 drugs include biological drugs scientifically proven to reduce the incidence of MS disease activity in people living with MS. My interferon drug, Interferon-B, now costs $2600 per month. Tier 4 co-pays are typically 25% or even 33% of a drugs costs.
For a person living with MS, who has Tier 4 drug co-pays in his/her insurance plan, s/he can have an $850 out-of-pocket expense -- that's like a mortgage on a modest home in many Wisconsin towns.How free is this person? Can't go shop for a different policy because no insurance company will sell him/her one. People who need this medicine to keep moving (and working and staying optimally productive) need it affordable or too many will decide to stop using it. And some will find themselves bound to a job, for only insurance that covers necessary healthcare services.
Tier 4 drug co-pays are a recent development in health insurance. Insurers are increasingly offering health insurance with Tier 4 drug co-pays as a way to "control costs" [for them]. Plans with Tier 4 drug co-pays cost less. Employers that provide employee insurance, looking for a way to "control [the] costs" might seek to save money [for themselves] and buy this insurance. Maybe your employer has already announced that your health insurance has changed?
Employers have an economic interest in buying health insurance that include a Tier 4 prescription drug plan. If you do not have a health insurance plan with Tier 4 prescription co-pays and you use a biological drug, you are lucky -- for now, but be aware you could be next!
I'm going to Legislative Affairs Day to advocate to end Tier 4 health plans in Wisconsin. We need to end Tier 4 -- there needs to be a cap on how much out-of-pocket any drug costs.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Exciting Times
I'm optimistic for results in the effort to pass legislation that causes quality, affordable health insurance for every American. There are so many people working to this end. I am so looking forward to 139 days from today to assess our progress.
Bayer, the company that now owns the patent on Interferon-B, the drug I use, has rolled out a "new" 30 gage needle for the injection. I think my first injections, 7 years ago when the price of 15 injections was only $960 per month, were with a 30 gage needle. Then the last company that owned the drug patent did a reformulation and designed a new system to "ready" the injection -- they sold 15 injections with a larger needle at a cost of about $1300 per month. No one asked for my opinion, but I prefered the $960 per month drug version because I had more control of the injection preparation process (and even though I'm insured, I prefer to not enrich an industry that spends twice as much on advertising than on research to find cures).
Now Bayer, in their brilliant greediness has reduced the number of "monthly" injections to 14, even though they kept the price of the drug, no more effective than when I started using it in 2001, at the private health insurance killing price of only $2360 per month. I'm sure if they can think of another way to squeeze another dollar out my insurance company, they'll figure it out.
Can you believe that their patent expired a couple years ago? And they have no competition?
Bayer, the company that now owns the patent on Interferon-B, the drug I use, has rolled out a "new" 30 gage needle for the injection. I think my first injections, 7 years ago when the price of 15 injections was only $960 per month, were with a 30 gage needle. Then the last company that owned the drug patent did a reformulation and designed a new system to "ready" the injection -- they sold 15 injections with a larger needle at a cost of about $1300 per month. No one asked for my opinion, but I prefered the $960 per month drug version because I had more control of the injection preparation process (and even though I'm insured, I prefer to not enrich an industry that spends twice as much on advertising than on research to find cures).
Now Bayer, in their brilliant greediness has reduced the number of "monthly" injections to 14, even though they kept the price of the drug, no more effective than when I started using it in 2001, at the private health insurance killing price of only $2360 per month. I'm sure if they can think of another way to squeeze another dollar out my insurance company, they'll figure it out.
Can you believe that their patent expired a couple years ago? And they have no competition?
Monday, October 20, 2008
The hardest walk
You thought I was gonna talk about the Jesus and Mary Chain song here, didn't you? It is one of my favorites by them.
I was thinking about the race for President.
The next President will profoundly affect healthcare for the next 4 years and beyond. Our Federal Government spends like 60% of all healthcare money -- that's powerful.
And its shameful that the Fed isn't doing more to affect healthcare. Our Federal Government should be negotiating with drug companies to lower drug costs with that 60% collective buying power. To protect our Federal Government's resources that are paying for new healthcare facilities, our Federal Government should negotiate with Healthcare companies any time one wants to build new facilities. Our Federal Government should create an FDA pathways to approve generic biological drugs and help remove barriers to new therapies. The Federal Government should allow for the importation of foreign drugs too -- like Europe's generic interferon-B drug.
Federal Government agencies can promote research, even say what research can't be done. Research can find cures, save lifes, save money. We need more research and our Government can promote it.
And the next President will affect who has health insurance, whether it is affordable and who does not.
Senator McCain's health insurance plan will increase my family's taxes by making us pay taxes on the cost of our benefits. My employer will lose the tax deduction for providing employee health insurance. My insurance costs $14,000 per year (a $2,000+ new tax) and McCain's tax credit of $5000 to buy our family's insurance is a joke. No insurance company will sell me any health insurance. If I could somehow get a plan, it will be a government subsidized plan filled with other sick people so the rates will be crazy expensive.
I hope everyone votes. Please vote.
I was thinking about the race for President.
The next President will profoundly affect healthcare for the next 4 years and beyond. Our Federal Government spends like 60% of all healthcare money -- that's powerful.
And its shameful that the Fed isn't doing more to affect healthcare. Our Federal Government should be negotiating with drug companies to lower drug costs with that 60% collective buying power. To protect our Federal Government's resources that are paying for new healthcare facilities, our Federal Government should negotiate with Healthcare companies any time one wants to build new facilities. Our Federal Government should create an FDA pathways to approve generic biological drugs and help remove barriers to new therapies. The Federal Government should allow for the importation of foreign drugs too -- like Europe's generic interferon-B drug.
Federal Government agencies can promote research, even say what research can't be done. Research can find cures, save lifes, save money. We need more research and our Government can promote it.
And the next President will affect who has health insurance, whether it is affordable and who does not.
Senator McCain's health insurance plan will increase my family's taxes by making us pay taxes on the cost of our benefits. My employer will lose the tax deduction for providing employee health insurance. My insurance costs $14,000 per year (a $2,000+ new tax) and McCain's tax credit of $5000 to buy our family's insurance is a joke. No insurance company will sell me any health insurance. If I could somehow get a plan, it will be a government subsidized plan filled with other sick people so the rates will be crazy expensive.
I hope everyone votes. Please vote.
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