Posted on 07/24/2017 8:13:57 PM PDT by NGC 6822
PARASITES IN US HEALTH CARE In early May my wife and I returned from a short vacation in Peru. Two weeks later I came down with severe diarrhea that has now continued unabated for six weeks. The cause has been identified as a parasite—Blastasytis Species.
This parasite is believed to be present in 23% of the American population and 100% of people in “less developed countries” (Wikipedia). Albendazole is the first line of treatment for this infection.
Albendazole tablets are sold throughout the world (outside of the US) for 1 penny to six cents each and are usually available as a non-prescription drug in any pharmacy. Inside the US the same pill is sold for $219 each (Wikipedia). After Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) approved their share of the cost, I was obliged to write a check for $649 to cover my co-pay for a 3-day supply of 12 pills, i.e. 4 pills per day. This is an experiment with no guarantee that it will be successful.
This medication has been in existence for 45 years. It is a generic medicine with an estimated one billion pills currently on the world market. However, Amenda Pharma (google it) has bought the US distribution rights, and thus they now monopolize the domestic market.
Ignoring parasites currently dining on the inside of my body, I am forced to ask myself the question, “Who are the parasites in the US Health Care System?” Is it the Trial Lawyers Assoc. or the American Medical Assoc. (AMA)? Is it the drug manufactures, or the distributers, or the insurance companies, or the politicians? Maybe the parasites are among the people themselves—the fraudulent claimers.
All I know is that I and my insurer had to pay up to 21,900 times more for pills here in the US than the amount an uninsured peasant pays for the same off-the-shelf medication in the rest of the world!
And please, no offense to the peasants—since I may become one of them soon.
In 2013, GlaxoSmithKline donated 763 million albendazole tablets for the treatment and prevention of parasitic infections in developing countries, bringing the total to over 4 billion tablets donated since 1998.[24]
Should have bought it in Peru.
“I was obliged to write a check for $649”
You have the affluence to take a vacation to Peru for fun but think $650 is too much to cure severe diarrhea caused by a parasitic infection?
Sounds like the greatest bargain you’ll ever have in your life.
Gosh, if you need more, can you get it from Canada or Mexico, or know someone who could? It’s a crazy system.
When first saw the title I thought it was about the parasites in congress.
I thought it was about pharmaceutical reps.
Clark Howard recommends using www.goodrx.com for comparison prices near you on prescription drugs - so I plugged it in -
Costco is the cheapest - 10 TABS $1,873.92
boy, am I glad I don’t have parasites...
“When first saw the title I thought it was about the parasites in congress.”
It only they could be dealt with for $649.00.
Get it through a Canadian pharmacy.
If I knew what I was coming back with, I certainlywould have bought them there.
Try alldaychemist.com it is based in India and we have successfully used them many times. They have Albendazole for sale as Zentel 400mg. Cost 86 cents apiece. Good luck.
Please don’t get me wrong. I did not like paying the price, but I definitely can afford it. My whole purpose for relating the experience is in sympathy for people in this country that DO NOT have insurance, or that cannot get past their deductible. Certainly, you must have sympathy for those people as well. By the way, I just threw the line in at the end about “joining the poor” for literary effect.
I hope you will focus on the real message the I am trying to raise about the various “parasites” that plague our less financially privelged citizens—and NOT ON ME.
We have a bizarre system. The only suggestions I’ve seen so far in this thread are can be summed up as “try and buy it under the table from Mexico or Canada.” Its a sad sign of how beaten-down Americans already are to accept such a system.
Government and progressives get their control, but at the cost of paying off crony-capitalists and insiders to run the racket.
They should all collapse.
Yikes -— Glad my patients get to take the much less pricey brand of albendazole.
This article is meant for readers to consider the various types of “parasites” that infest our Health Care system in a similar way that the biological parasites are living off the food that I put down my throat.
I want to hasten to say: There are many good and bad people in each of the groups that I listed toward the end of the post. We need and have some worthy trial lawyers. We need and have good doctors. We need and have some good politicians. Same for drug manufactures and distributers as mentioned in a post above. But we must focus on getting the leaches and parasites OUT.
Zentel also sold in the UK is quite cheap.
Yes, in fact for $649 I can give my wife a small paid vacation to Vancouver or somewhere to buy the pills. I can’t go, because I could never deal with the toilet line on an airplane.
Yes, the 12 tablets were actually going to cost like $2300. Blue Cross picked up the lion’s share, and I took the $649.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.