Health insurance, you can't live with it.......you get it.


For the most part I enjoy good health, especially for an older guy.  I take a cholesterol-lowering drug and that's about the extent of my regular medical needs.  For the most part, I don't use my insurance that much.  That doesn't mean that they haven't got a way too screw me, though.

My insurance insists that I order my cholesterol med via the mail, since it is considered maintenance, not urgent.  This, they say is the most cost-efficient way to get my pills and keep cost lower for everyone.  A 90-day-supply costs me $25 using my insurance.  Not too bad.

What I discovered recently is that the insurance pays zero dollars toward these refills and I pay the $25 copay.  I'm paying full retail through the insurance.  That got me to thinking.

I checked with some of these $4 plans at the big box stores and found my drug wasn't on their lists for $4.  But Costco will fill my prescription for $9 for 90 days, saving my $16 off the insurance company prices.  So, not only was there no benefit to my by my insurance, the company was profiting an extra $15 or so from my using them.  Bastards!

Not to lay lie to my good health claim, but I developed a touch of cellulitis in my thigh this week.  This morning I went to the doc and he prescribed an antibiotic. 

In this case, mail order is not practical anyway, so I went to my insurance website to find my options and cost.  They recommended that I go to a Walmart near me to fill the prescription.  I would have a $10 copay and they would contribute nothing.

I happened to ask the Walmart person what the self-pay price was and it turns out that it is $4.  Pay $4 without insurance, pay $10 with it.  Did I mention bastards?





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky