I take the drug Lipitor (10 mg) under orders from my doctor. The drug is to keep my cholesterol at a reasonable level, and for many months now it has worked very well. Although Lipitor is a very expensive drug, my insurance company covers it and I only have to make a very small co-pay -- about $6.50 a month, which is more than reasonable.
But last month the patent ran out on Lipitor, and now there is at least one generic on the market (and more on the way as soon as they get FDA approval). My personal view is that no one should pay more for any product than they have to pay, not even an insurance company. So I asked my doctor to change my prescription to the generic form of the drug. It would make very little difference in what I pay for the drug, but I figured it would save the insurance company some money (and if enough people did that maybe it would encourage them to keep from raising their premiums).
Well, I guess I was wrong. The company did not appreciate my efforts at saving them some money. Their rather nasty letter said they would no longer pay for the generic (and only paid for the first prescription because Medicare rules required them to do so). They suggested I change my prescription to a drug included in their official formulary. So, since the more expensive Lipitor is in their formulary, I will be returning to it when I get my next refill. In short, the insurance company is ordering me to get the more expensive version of the drug -- even though they are the ones paying for it.
Now I don't have a problem with going back to Lipitor instead of using the generic, but the whole thing does strike me as rather stupid. When insurance companies (and I suspect they are all pretty much the same) refuse to let their customers save them a few dollars, is it any wonder that premiums are going up so much and so often?
Makes me think there must be some sort of kick back going on between the insurance company and the pharmaceutical company. Just one more reason to support any and all efforts to rein in the unchecked power of mega-corporations and their unbridled influence over our government and our lives.
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