Alas, this is no joke. Last weekend, I received an emergency call from an old friend. Her dogs got into rat bait. She immediately induced vomiting, and then called me. Unfortunately, I was away from the office and we were closed. She wasn’t able to go to an emergency clinic to give charcoal to prevent further absorption, so I knew her dogs needed Vitamin K1, which was the antidote to the toxin. So after a lot of calls to human pharmacies, I finally had one which had a human version of Vitamin K. Because humans use much lower doses (humans tend not to eat rat poison) a lot of pills would be required. So my friend, my client drove to the drug store.
Then I received a phone call. The medication was….$1000 for two dogs. For a weeks worth of Vitamin K1. I was quite simply floored. I had no clue of the cost, which was quite simply put beyond insane. There was no way I was going to allow her to pay that kind of money, so I drove down to the hospital and got her two weeks worth for both dogs. And the cost…$37. Yes, we have generic, but a $1000 dollars? Vitamin K1 is a life saving drug for people in liver failure to prevent bleeding. Without adequate insurance, they couldn’t afford this drug (along with all of the other drugs they’d take.)
Why the price difference? The active ingredient is the same. Both are FDA approved. But one is labelled for animals, and one for humans. The honest answer is because they can. Insurance companies pay a portion of this amount, about $100 or so, and the patient maybe $30-40. But un or underinsured pay a lot more.
Whatever you think of the president’s health care, $1000 for essentially the same medication I sell for $37 is just plain wrong. The active ingredient isn’t expensive. The drug is not new. Only no generics exist for the human version, so they can charge what they want.
I don’t know how to fix the problem, I certainly feel that pharmaceutical companies need to generate a profit. But there has to be a realistic limit, or no one will ever have true access to affordable health care without costs which will break all of us.