Interesting article in NY times on the large price discounts realized by the insurer’s captive Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). Whether these discounts actually get to the patient are a different story. My Aetna Part D drug plan is quoting a price of $3,032 for a 3-month supply of Ozempic. That’s about triple the $300/month discounted price quoted in the article. And the Aetna PBM is one of the largest by prescription volume, thus they should be able to negotiate one of the largest discounts.
The only thing you can be sure of with health insurance is the price gouging.
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! Do it before you get an attack.
Unfortunately for me Shingrex came out waaaay too late. I have had shingles recurrently since I was eleven and possibly since I was eight (Mom remembered an odd illness with blisters). My Grannies over the years team taught me to think that “the pain is a miscommunication your body is making because all that you have are those little blisters,” meditative exercises, and other techniques to put the pain aside from conscious consideration, and perseverance to “just keep on going because you know you can.”
Thanks to them the pain rarely stops me, but now that I am in my mid 70’s the exhaustion is truly debilitating. I have had five Shingrex shots, the first two as recommended gave me a strong response but not immunity. Then I did another set of three shots more tightly spaced than recommended, and my immune system might be slowly “learning” and getting the upper hand (knock on wood) as the attacks over the last year have been milder and less frequent,
Do Not Mess around with this, as the immunization works for almost everybody if you get it before the virus gets deeply embedded, like enemy sleeper cells, in your body from recurrent attacks.
david fb
p.s. Here in central Mexico we are worried about what the Hurricane did to Acapulco and the poor people in the coastal mountains, AND hoping that the storm drops a whole lot of rain on us as it dissipates here in the Bajio.
Bingo. The reporting on Mexican news show real bad unpreparedness and Real Estate dream states rudely interrupted. Mexico is damn good and even ferocious about earthquake preparedness, but seems they will need harsh lessons (like much of the world) as GCC changes what is dealt.
I was never on an O-care plan. I retired at the end of 2011. Bought a high deductible plan from United Health. I looked at O-care plans a couple times, but they always cost more than what I had.
I looked at the FV of SS payments, 62, vs 66, vs 70. It would take until I was around 88 for the fatter payments to catch up to the stack I would have, starting at 62, so I started SS at 62. The other calculation was about my conventional IRA. The more I take out sooner, the less there will be left in the IRA later, so my RMD will be smaller. Then there were the divis from the cash brokerage account.
So, I didn’t qualify for a poverty O-care plan.
The last few years, I have managed my income to be just below the level where the Medicare premiums go up.