Hearing the voices of older Americans facing high drug bills each month is listening to fear and worry, anger and stress. He says he is thinking about how to proceed.
For Kim Armbruster, 65, who recently retired after a 40-year nursing career, she signed up for Medicare to help control the cost of drugs for diabetes, psoriatic arthritis, and Graves’ disease (an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid). The competition has continued since joining the March.
Armbruster, who lives in Cary, Illinois, said she saved extra insulin from prescriptions when she had business insurance. This was enough to keep costs down before the monthly cap kicked in.
By June, she hit Medicare’s crippling compensation threshold after paying more than $7,000 for Enbrel, the drug she’s taking for her arthritis. Synthroid she is taking for Graves’ disease. About Eliquis, atrial fibrillation, insulin, and her insulin pump.
“It’s all about thinking ahead, looking for alternatives, and strategizing your finances so you can take the medicines you need,” she said. “Learn everything you can to learn to manipulate drug costs and stay healthy without complications,” she added.
The drug carousel taken by Spring, a dementia patient who died in April, included jaw-dropping price tags for drugs such as the heart disease Eliquis and the Alzheimer’s drug Namenda. I also took antidepressants and medications to ease the side effects of Namenda.