It's weird how things work out sometimes.

[Tobin S.]

I've been taking a drug called Geodon (ziprasidone) for my bipolar 1 illness for the last nine years. The drug works wonderfully, but it is very expensive- about $700 for a one month supply in the dosage I take. Fortunately, I have had health insurance for most of that time so it hasn't cost me nearly that much.

But I used to be self employed and could not get coverage for my illness, let alone the drug. I asked my psychiatrist not long ago how soon he thought there would be a generic out for Geodon and he told me it would be many years. Well, I just got my monthly prescription filled and they filled the Geodon with the generic ziprasidone. I was amazed. I can now get a month's supply for about $70 without insurance, but I do have health insurance through my employer now and the drug costs me about $15.

This really opens up a lot of doors for me and frees me to do some things that I didn't think I'd be able to do for a long time.

[seabeyond]

1. i am glad to hear that tobin. and of course

a drug that is lifesaving for so many to cost that much is wrong. as we know. i take no prescriptions so i dont know a lot about this, but that is the cost for some, to have a roof over their head. i think about people barely making it. shameful

i am glad that the generic has come out for you. alleviate the pressure of having to be covered regardless.

things seem to have really been going your way over time.

[Tobin S.]

2. Thank you.

Yeah, I've been doing pretty good here lately. I'm not a believer in karma, but things like this make me want to believe sometimes. I lost 10 years of my life to this illness from 20-30 years old. From 30 until now (I'm 39) things have worked out well for me, like I'm getting those 10 years back. It seems like many aspects of my life are cyclical like my illness. Hopefully, I have broken the cycle.

[seabeyond]

10. i dont know about the

karma thing but i am a firm believer in universal laws. action/reaction always. what we put out is returned one way or another. you have been taking all the steps for positive feed back. even when things seem negative, you pull out the higher in it. there is a lower and higher in all things. even the lower and higher, lol. the best is a stillness of purity of non movement. the now, wink....

and that is my philosophical moment of the half year, lol

people thought i odd before, well, i can show you odd.

[Tobin S.]

12. I don't think you're odd. You seem pretty well grounded to me.

If there was something good to come out of all that time I suffered, it is that it taught me to keep going in the face of adversity. I look back and I don't know how I made it sometimes, but I did. I just kept going and I got through. I guess they call that perseverance and it's been an important life lesson for me. If you set out to do something and you have a goal, just keep going. Failure might be a possibility, but if you have the right state of mind success is more likely.

[seabeyond]

13. you have shown this to us....

a decade of hard and ugly, and still you were able to make it thru and have so much more. we have gotten to watch, thru you sharing it with us.

that is profound.

[Bertha Venation]

18. Hear, hear, seabeyond.

[elleng]

3. Great news, Tobin S.

That's REAL MONEY you're talking about!

[Tobin S.]

4. You ain't kidding

The difference just about equals our house payment. If I were to become unemployed or uninsured for some reason it would hurt nearly as bad while I was looking for something else.

[hedgehog]

5. My kids and I deal with a couple chronic illnesses,

and it's been wonderful to see a generation of very effective drugs come off patent and go generic! The price differential you offer is pretty typical!

[suninvited]

6. I had a respiratory illness this week

and almost jumped up and down with joy to learn that ZPak is now available generic. As an uninsured person, those good antibiotics were always so hard to afford.

I know there are restrictions on how long a patented medicine has to be around before it can go generic, but I wonder if there have been some changes in the rules recently?

[Tobin S.]

7. I don't know

Hedgehog mentioned something similar above. I don't know if this is a part of health care reform.

[Ikonoklast]

8. That's almost better than getting a raise.

Anytime you can cut expenses like that, it's more money right in your pocket.

$700.00 a month was outright theft.

[Tobin S.]

11. Yep

You may remember that I was a truck owner-operator. We talked a little bit about it. Through that time I had coverage on a COBRA plan, but it expired after 18 months. That was at the end of last year. Before then, I was looking ahead to 2012 wondering what I was going to do. At the time, the drug cost about $300 a month without insurance and I thought that I might be able to swing that.

I then got married and started working for someone else locally and everything worked out from there regarding the insurance issue.

But there was a rapid increase in the cost of the drug that I didn't know about until December of last year. I looked into it because I thought that I might be without coverage for a couple of months and was shocked. I was wondering how I was going to find $1400 and still pay the bills. If I had encountered that problem while being self-employed, it might have been the end of my business or a run up on the credit card that I couldn't sustain.

[Ikonoklast]

20. Things worked out for the best all around.

You would have been faced with an intolerable choice if still self-employed; there was no way you were going to find that kind of money out of your budget, I know that I couldn't.

Hell, $700 a month is a new reefer trailer payment!

At least I could make money off of that, along with the depreciation for equipment. $700 a month for a drug essential to your basic function as a human being is criminal.


As an aside, I finally took the step and got my own operating authority, it went into effect on May 3, and is conditional to getting the insurance set up. I got the final quotes on Friday, and Monday or Tuesday I'll say the word, and be doing my own deal as soon as I get the truck and trailer re-lettered/numbered.

It didn't make much sense to pay someone else to do what I can essentially now do all from my cab; fax, copy, send insurance binders and get set up with new brokers, etc., copy and file all the paperwork, what have you.

I'm laying up at the Petro in Greensburg, IN right now for a 0730 in Mason, OH, nursery stock load.



Married life seems to agree with you in a very big way.

Congrats to you and your bride.

[Tobin S.]

21. Thank you

That Petro used to be one of my fuel stops. I'd load out of Cincy heading out to the northwest and I'd stop there and fill up the tanks. It's a good thing you got there early. That place fills up quickly- at least it used to.

Congrats on the new step up to being an independent.

[lunatica]

9. That's very good news indeed

People should never be forced to chose whether to take medication or not based on cost.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. What great news, my dear Tobin!

I know you'll be able to take advantage of this new savings!

Congrats on your very good fortune...

[RebelOne]

15. Tobin, check this Web site out.

I order from them for my blood pressure medicine. It is a Canadian pharmacy and does not require a presrciption. My sister just had a minor stroke and the doctor prescribed Plavix for her which cost $94 for a 2-week supply ay her local pharmacy. I turned on to this site and she is only paying less than 1/4 of the price for a 4-month supply.

http://www.family-online-pharmacy.com/purchase_anti_depressants_generic/buy_cheap_geodon_online.html

[Tobin S.]

16. Thanks for the link

I was reading the FAQ and it says that if your medicine requires a prescription to obtain in your country then you have to get one and send it to them. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that they'd let a powerful anti-psychotic loose without a doctor's approval- at least not to this country.

[RebelOne]

19. Even if you did have to send a prescription from your doctor,

the cost will be a lot less than from your local pharmacy.

[Bertha Venation]

17. Great news, Tobin!!

This really is great news!!

Insurance. We are very, very fortunate to be among the insured.

[Aristus]

22. I love it when generics kick the slats out from under Big Pharma.

My patients (well, all patients, actually) deserve to be able to obtain medication without going bankrupt.

Big day for me recently was when lovastatin went generic. All statin medications have roughly equal efficacy, but lovastatin has far fewer side effects than simvastatin or pravastatin.

I'm happy for you, Tobin!