Tier 4 drugs cost bank
A new kind of prescription drug plan has patients paying for a percentage of their drug's cost instead of a flat co-pay like $10, according to a New York Times story. The drug plan is called Tier 4. Many Medicare plans have it and now an increasing number of private plans are using it. Only a few drugs are in Tier 4 but they are very expensive, pushing patient co-pays to three or four digits.
"The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too," the story says. "No one knows how many patients are affected, but hundreds of drugs are priced this new way. They are used to treat diseases that may be fairly common, including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, hepatitis C and some cancers. There are no cheaper equivalents for these drugs, so patients are forced to pay the price or do without."
It's so hard to believe that the lives of so many are in the hands of bean counters. Even though our government is plagued by inefficiencies, this is a strong argument for universal health care. Read the whole story here, or if you can't log onto the NYT site, click on the first link at the top of this page. If that *still* does not work, email me with a request and I will forward you the story.
