As a teenager, John Miller was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition that required several major surgeries to remove part of his intestine.
Miller, now 39, has been physically unable to work full-time since his last major surgery in 2014. He struggled to obtain disability insurance, having to live with and rely on family during the appeals process until it was finally approved.
However, now Miller, of Chicago, is stuck in a cycle of having to regularly file for bankruptcy due to the debt that he accrues every month from the copays of his medication.
Every month, he gets an infusion of the drug Entyvio, which is used to treat Crohn’s.
“The cost before insurance is US$1,800 per infusion,” Miller said. “My disability insurance only covers half of that. My copay is US$900 a month, which is more expensive than my rent. I’m expected to pay US$900 for an infusion that I need. It is a necessary medication for my disease. It’s my main medicine. I’ve also been refused my infusions due to insurance refusing to authorize it even though I’m disabled.”
Missing a single dose would disrupt his treatment and cause his disease to worsen, he said.
Last year, he filed for bankruptcy to discharge the debts from his monthly bills for the infusions and plans to do the same again this year, because he has no way of paying for it with just his government disability check to live on.
“My disease destroys my physical abilities and at the same time really dampens my mental health,” Miller said. “It’s really hard to stay optimistic when you feel helpless.”
Miller is just one of millions of Americans who struggle to afford the prescription drugs and medical supplies that they require to survive.
Twenty-four percent of adults and 23 percent of elderly people report difficulty in affording their prescription medications, a poll released in February last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed.
A Gallup poll released in November last year reported that 22.9 percent of Americans could not afford their prescription medications at least once over the previous year.
The high costs of prescription drugs in the US are being driven by excessive drug prices set by pharmaceutical corporations, which continue to increase prices of hundreds of drugs every year.
In 2018, pharmaceutical companies reaped 63 percent of all profits in the US healthcare system, despite collecting only 23 percent of the industry revenue.
LaDawn Stuben of Tempe, Arizona, drives to Mexico twice a year to fill up on her asthma medication, where it costs a fraction of the price, even with health insurance coverage.
“My maintenance inhaler, Symbicort, costs US$110 a month here after insurance. In Mexico, it’s US$20. My rescue inhaler, albuterol, is not covered by my insurance plan and would be US$75 out of pocket. In Mexico, they’re US$3 each,” Stuben said.
She has been making the trip over the past five years, saving thousands of dollars by doing so.
Kristy Sullivan Pardeck and her husband, both high-school teachers in Fenton, Missouri, have struggled to afford the prescription medicines and medical supplies their five-year-old daughter, who was born with spina bifida, requires to live. Their daughter’s catheters and enemas cost US$2,000 a month out of pocket, on top of the medical care expenses and medication costs over the past few years not covered by their insurance.
“We could never catch up. We had to alternate which utility bills would get paid. Our electricity was turned off once or twice. We overdrafted every month for several years,” Sullivan Pardeck said.
Her family and employer have held several fundraisers over the past few years and she has been able to find a few different charities to help cover bills, but still struggles to afford her required medical supplies and the couple has thousands of dollars in credit card debt from medical expenses when her daughter was first born.
“We are still recovering from draining all our bank accounts and charging the bills that first year,” she said.
Katya Grey, a single mother in Atlanta, Georgia, struggles to afford the several medications that she requires to treat her epilepsy, allergies and a heart condition.
“My current monthly cost for my medications is US$375,” said Grey, who also pays a US$250 monthly premium for health insurance.
Her Epipen is expired, because she cannot afford the US$385 that it costs.
“Things happen that cause me to forgo my monthly medications,” Grey said. “I have had to break pills and skip doses just to make them stretch a little longer.”
In December 2016, Grey was hospitalized after stretching a one-month supply of epilepsy medication for three months, where she was put in a medically induced coma to stop a series of seizures.
“After those events, I had to make sure I had those medications no matter what. There are months where I do run short because of costs, but I’ve gotten better at just reducing doses, rather than skipping them,” Grey said. “It’s a monthly stressor.”
Americans spent US$1,220 per person annually in 2017 on pharmaceutical medications, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data showed — by far the most of any developed nation in the world.
A report published in the journal Health Affairs in January last year found that drug costs are driven largely by year-on-year price hikes made by pharmaceutical manufacturers on drugs already on the market rather than innovation, as often claimed by the pharmaceutical industry.
“Our results are relevant from a policy perspective because they show that price increases do not necessarily reflect innovation, or money spent on research and development,” said Inmaculada Hernandez, a pharmacy professor at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of the study.
Legislators in the US Congress have voiced support for passing legislation to address the high cost of prescription drugs in the US, but have yet to come to an agreement on legislative action.
US President Donald Trump has wrongly claimed that prescription drug prices have decreased under his administration, while struggling to enact administrative reforms to lower prescription drug costs.
For the first two years of their daughter’s life, Britany LiButti and her husband, of Buffalo, New York, had to pay nearly US$3,000 for prescription medications, despite having health insurance coverage. Their daughter was born with a congenital disorder, vesicoureteral reflux, and was only recently taken off medication for it.
“Even after insurance, our medical bills from our child’s medications, surgeries and hospital stays have forced us to crowdfund for help, and we are still tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Medications and lifesaving medical care in this country have financially ruined our family,” LiButti said. “We are still constantly getting calls, e-mails and reminders that we owe money to various places.”
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
As Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won by a landslide in Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is a good time to take another look at recent developments in the Maldivian foreign policy. While Muizzu has been promoting his “Maldives First” policy, the agenda seems to have lost sight of a number of factors. Contemporary Maldivian policy serves as a stark illustration of how a blend of missteps in public posturing, populist agendas and inattentive leadership can lead to diplomatic setbacks and damage a country’s long-term foreign policy priorities. Over the past few months, Maldivian foreign policy has entangled itself in playing