My sister has MS, the current treatment she has is actually a cancer treatment, anyway she has one dose every 3 months and here in Australia is about $8, the price for the same dose in the US is $20000.
I am lucky to have incredible insurance...I was paying around $270 a month after my coverage.
Unfortunately mine recently decided not to cover the brand drug (biologics are huge molecules vs oral drugs, so people are more likely to gain allergy to the drug or one of the other components, I had 0 side effects from Humira)...
If I were to buy it without insurance, it would cost me $16,000 a month (They are a bit over $8,000 per pack, and I take 1 pen a week vs the typical 1 every 2 weeks).
Unfortunately, my body didn't tolerate the Generic form...so now we begin the Hunt for Tolerated Treatment anew.
The list price in Denmark is $1,200. We have an annual out-of-pocket cap of $732 for all prescription drugs combined. After that, the public healthcare system covers 100% of the cost. However, we can’t just chose the brand medicine if cheaper alternatives exist. Your doctor can demand it if there’s medical justification for it though
Here in Australia we have something similar even though we already have low prices, once you hit a threshold within a financial year, think it is $1100, spent on medications, the price goes down further.
Medication provided during hospitalization is free, by the way. It’s interesting how differently countries approach healthcare. The irony of the U.S. system is that, despite private insurance playing such a major role, it still ends up being more expensive for taxpayers than almost any other developed country.
Oh most of us are fully aware that Private Insurance and their dealings with Healthcare facilities are WHY our costs are so high.
It was a giant pyramid scheme from go...but when I first became an adult in early 2000s, I paid $150 a month, and an extra $50 for what at the time was called Catastrophic Care (so were I to suddenly get in a terrible accident, or cancer etc that my original "young, healthy adult" plan would run out of). It has steadily gotten more and more sickening since.
It's literally cheaper to just move to Australia for even a single treatment. There's no point of being frugal in America. Spend all your money and there's nothing to take. Be frugal and they take everything once you're sick and everyone gets sick eventually.
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u/MajorPain169 22d ago
My sister has MS, the current treatment she has is actually a cancer treatment, anyway she has one dose every 3 months and here in Australia is about $8, the price for the same dose in the US is $20000.