Outrage

Color me OUTRAGED.

My mom has shingles. It was diagnosed this afternoon. She got two prescriptions from her doctor: a small (5g) tube of ointment, and 21 pills.

Thank God, she has insurance. She had to pay $60 for the ointment and $10 for the pills. But if you get sticker shock from either of those numbers, then I invite you to drop your jaw in astonishment at what those meds would've cost a person WITHOUT medical insurance:

The full price of 5g of ointment is $871.89.
The full price of the 21 pills is $256.59.

Are the pharmaceutical companies INSANE? WTF is in those meds that could possibly justify their costing so much? I flat-out can't believe that there's any justification, other than blind greed, that could possibly explain those prices.

A person who has no medical insurance would have had to leave their shingles untreated. In the 21st Century in the United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, people have to go without medical treatment. Why is the preceding sentence not a contradiction of terms? There's a scripture passage that says the crimes against widows and orphans cry out to God for justice... well, if pricing people who need care out of medical treatment doesn't fit that description, I have no idea what does.

Pharmaceutical companies should be ashamed of themselves. Greedy farging bastages.