Sociopathic Medicine

I remember when the United States stopped controlling the price of gold. Back when I was a kid gold was always $35 an ounce. In 1971 Nixon cut the dollar loose from the value of gold, basically making it desirable for citizens to buy the stuff as the price of gold shot through the roof. I don't know much about economics, but I do know what I pay for things. Gasoline has gone from $4 a gallon to about $1.75 as of our last PT Cruiser fill up. That's a good thing, for me. Not so much for those in the oil business. I don't worry about those folks very much. They can always get a job in the new economy, at McDonalds or Walmart.

Yesterday I went to get the prescription for my eye drops refilled. They come in a little green box with a green cap, and they are preventing me from going blind. So with the going blind thing in the back of my mind, I have never thought about not paying the $45 co-pay every month. It's the price of not having to learn Braille. For years my insurance company has charged me that co-pay, so when  I went to pick up the drops I had $45 on my mind. Imagine my surprise when the nice lady at Walgreens told me they were $244.

"Oh no. That's a mistake. I have a $45 co-pay."

The lady put her glasses on and stared at the computer screen, poked at a couple of keys, and without looking up said, "I'm sorry, but your insurance company now has a deductable that you have to meet before the co-pay kicks in."

I was stunned. I was also a fool for not reading the information pack that the insurance company had sent me. There, if you dig hard enough, it tells me that there is a deductable. The bastards slipped that one right by me. At that price, $244, the eye drops that I need to keep from going blind cost $732 an ounce. Just a  little less than the price of an ounce of gold. Thank you Allergan Pharmaceuticals.

I'm told that marijuana, something that I could grow for free in my own yard if the government would let me, something that I'm told will do the same thing that the $732 an ounce eye drops will do, costs around $200 an ounce. The only drawback is that the effect marijuana has on eye pressure only lasts three to four hours, and then you have to take more of it. I suppose you could call that a drawback.