| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Getting Prescription Drugs for TEOTWAWKI, by Sara Sue
It was quite a shocker when I couldn’t get my husband’s heart medication prescriptions filled in January. After numerous phone calls to our pharmaceutical insurer, I finally found someone who assessed and fixed the problem, but it took over 6 weeks to get his prescriptions filled. (Fortunately, I had stocked up last year, so he wasn’t completely out of his medications. Stocking up was not intentional. The insurer accidentally sent twice the amount requested and when I called to let them know, they said not to worry about it and they would stop the auto-refill feature). As to why my husband’s prescriptions could not be filled, the customer care representative said something about a “glitch” in the system. At least, that is how it was explained to me. How one customer care representative described it – “…all Medicare eligible persons are being switched over to a Medicare type plan and your husband’s record did not make it into the new database”. The net effect was that it appeared he didn’t have any drug insurance coverage. The problem was “fixed”, but the costs skyrocketed.
Hey, wait a minute, we have private drug insurance through my husband’s previous employer – he is now retired. We didn’t sign up for Medicare Part D because we didn’t need it. We already had good insurance. How can they switch you over like that without your knowledge or permission? ObamaCare, that’s how. The out of pocket costs for his prescriptions is now more than 10 times what they were the last year (i.e., $10 co-pay versus a $100 co-pay per prescription + a deductible that quadrupled and an out of pocket cap that doubled). And this happened with no warning. Our budget is fairly tight each month, so it was a budget shocker too. I scrambled to rob Peter to pay Paul to get the medications he needed, but I was angry. I thought of all the seniors who are less fortunate than ourselves. How would they pay for their medications? And how in the world can anyone stock up on medications for TEOTWAWKI?
This article provided some information about skyrocketing drug costs and the changes being made in Medicare right now under ObamaCare. (Listen up people, the sequester and the Republicans have nothing to do with this, as Mr. O declares. These changes are a direct result of ObamaCare.) The title, Medicare drug costs to fall in 2014, but donut hole widens, is a bit misleading. Costs are up for 2013, so don’t believe they are going down in 2014. Here’s a quote from the article:
“Seniors fall into the “donut hole” when spending on drugs (the combination of what the individual and the insurance company spend) reaches a predetermined threshold. This year, the number is $2,970; after that point, the senior pays 50 percent (a new change this year from the Affordable Care Act) of brand-name drug costs, until individual spending exceeds $4,750…
But for 2014, the CMS has proposed that beneficiaries enter the hole when combined spending reaches $2,850 –
Source:
KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS even from the Canadian Pharmacy. You can tax deduct these and/or use them to reach the 7% of AGI to be able to deduct everything and anything medical. The IRS does not ask you to send in the receipts. Only to add them up and enter the totals along with everything else medical. Even people who’ve been audited have not been questioned on the fact that it was an out-of-the-country pharmacy. Only that the drugs were/are prescribed and therefore “medically necessary.”