Claritin dilemma
Bob gets really bad allergies in spring and fall, and last year his pediatrician offered us a prescription for Claritin. It worked effectively. Of course, Claritin went over the counter this past December, so it's no longer covered by our medical insurance's prescription drug plan.
What these means is that while we used to pay $10 for about 20 pills, we now pay $11 for 10 pills. I'm not terribly pleased with the situation, and from the news reports I've seen on the television in the past day or so, neither are many other people, who are complaining to their insurance companies and asking to have prescriptions written for competing products.
The insurance companies are apparently insisting that they try Claritin first, and some companies are asking doctors for proof that their patients try Claritin before honoring prescriptions for other allergy medications. It seems like a silly runaround: Doctors are bitching because it means more paperwork for them.
It's easy to make insurance companies the bad guys here: Lord only knows that health care management organizations have really been able to fuck up the quality of medicine in the States over the past decade. But the insurance companies aren't to blame. What's happening is a case of sticker shock as consumers are being forced to pay fair market value for something that up until now they've been able to get their insurance companies to heavily subsidize.
It's obviously not the most altruistic situation, and people for whom a $10, week-and-a-half supply is a financial burden are put in a tight spot. But as long as we as a society are expecting companies like Schering-Plough HealthCare Products Inc. to shell out the R&D and marketing costs to bring a product like Claritin to market themselves, go through the hassle of FDA approval and all that's associated with it, we don't really have a right to bitch when they expect to get paid for their efforts.