Just Not Right

You wouldn't believe what the drugs to cover all these infections have cost, but I guess I should be glad that my insurance covers any of it. Without the insurance, I would have spent about $5,000 on prescription drugs in the past 30 days.

Let's say it together: that's not right!

For one thing, I think the expensive drug I got yesterday is wrong, because I think the diagnosis is wrong; and we won't know that until this course doesn't solve my problem... but if the doc had said 'I think you have CMV' then I would responded that previous tests for CMV have come back negative, and insisted on doing another one before assuming that's a correct diagnosis. I hope he's right, and I hope the pill fixes the problem. It won't, though. The pill is supposed to treat CMV retinitis, which affects the eyes; my problem is in the tissue inside my mouth.

But I've second guessed this particular doc before. He doesn't like it when I'm right. He gets a little testy. I can understand that, I guess.

I wish all doctors understood that I know my case better than anybody. I know that is not true of all patients--though it should be--but it is true for me. Some of my doctors know and respect that. One of my doctors lets me alter or discontinue a couple of my meds depeding on how I feel, and I haven't been wrong so far.

The point is not that I know more than they do, or that I don't respect their years of experience with these things, but I am one person, and I have only one body to worry about.

It's just frustrating, is all. And I'm mad that my copay on this drug to treat a virus I probably don't have was more than $150. I'm sick and tired of covering the R&D costs of an industry that clears 20 percent profit. I'm sick of hearing pharmaceuticals companies crying poor because the rest of the world has price controls.

I don't think that some other country's price controls should make it OK to gouge the American consumer.

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