City Finds a Cure for Drug Costs in Canada

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drugs1nov01222419,1,2607778.story?coll=la-home-leftrail

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Four times a day, when 13-year-old Mikey Albano injects himself with insulin from Canada to control his diabetes, his only concern is aiming the syringe.

Mikey — the son of this city's mayor — knows that some people question whether the medication that comes by mail to his home in a refrigerated package might be outdated or otherwise unsafe. Mikey also has heard critics suggest his father is endangering his life to save a few pennies.

"That is just wrong," the eighth-grader says. "And I'm living proof."

Three months ago, Mayor Michael J. Albano launched the country's first insurance plan that allows city workers to buy lower-cost medication from Canada. Albano and leaders of 23 unions spent nine months crafting a program to curb health-care expenses, which had more than doubled since the mayor took office in 1996.

In this medium-sized city in western Massachusetts, some of the 20,000 workers and their families are saving 30% to 90% on prescriptions because Canada's provincial health-care systems and government regulations keep prices lower.
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This is the sort of headline that needs to be kept in the forefront in the fight for medical system reform in America. No one seems to ever ask this administration why the Canadians can manage less expensive drug costs than we can.

One possible answer is here: Pharmaceuticals/Health Products:
Top Contributors
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[Don_G]

1. Exactly

My retired Mom was given a choice between food and the medication she needed to control her blood pressure after the company abandon that benefit to the retirees.

Food won. The Drug Industry that contributed to the Rethuglicans won. The company she used to work for won.

My Mom didn't....

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. Sorry to read that, Don. It makes one wonder haw many deaths

the current U.S. policies on medical care and pharmaceuticals are responsible for.

As long as the effect on the wealthy is minimal, it gives me little hope that much will be done about it in my lifetime.

[Malva Zebrina]

3. I was reading today on a web site

hosted by a diabetic who is pretty well informed and intent upon passing on his information to the rest of those diabetics--his name is Rick Mendosa and his web site is www.mendosa.com/diabetes.htm and is one of the best. You can sign up for his very informative newsletters.

Anyhow, for blood sugar testing--one pays about one dollar for each little test strip that gets inserted into a blood glucose monitor. These monitors are necessary to keep track of one's reaction to food and to injected insulin. A drop of blood is absorbed by the strip and then is "read" by the monitor to determine what the blood glucose is at that time. It is recommended by the manufacturers of these strips that one test six times a day--do the math--Medicare only will pay for one hundred strips--otherwise, one pays out to make up the cost if they are testing that many times a day (6)--and if one does not have medicare, they had better have insurance that would cover that cost which amounts to 180 dollars a month if one is doing the recommended testing in a thirty day period. That is simply outrageous.

Anyhow, I read on Mendosa's site that there were two companies that were making generic strips that were decidedly cheaper--and they are no longer in business in the US. One of them only sells their cheaper product to foreign countries and is not available to US citizens and the other company was bought out by J&J and is no longer mentioned anywhere--not on their web site or not available anywhere.