Last Wednesday, the same day that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in New York, I received a call from a pharmacist assistant at Walgreens.
She said she could no longer write a prescription for a needle that would fit my insulin pen because my insurance company, Aetna, now insists that I have to prescribe every 90 days by mail. . You may be able to get an exception, but you'll need to call Aetna.
no problem! My job is to call people. I called the number on the back of my insurance card and multitasked online. — while it took me a long time to try out the website.
Fill out the online form and mail it to Texas along with your credit card number. I stared at the shape and tried to imagine a box of BD Nano 2nd generation 4mm pen needles showing up on my doorstep. Not likely.
Meanwhile, on the phone, I was introduced to several people whose English proficiency was less than ideal. My proposed exception didn't make any sense. Negotiations to obtain needles by mail broke down. What we ended up working out was that we needed to have our doctors submit a 90-day prescription to CVS. Did I mention that CVS owns Aetna? That's true. The cost for 3 boxes (90 days supply) will be $78.
Well, I've loved CVS ever since Nicholson Baker published “The Mezzanine,” a gem of a little novel about a man who breaks his shoelaces and goes to CVS to buy new shoes. Great, but not enough to steal brand loyalty from Walgreens, the venerable Chicago company that invented the malt milkshake. You can bike to Walgreens. I also know the people there, thanks to my regular visits to secure the seven prescriptions I need every day to keep me from dying from diabetes.
Social media erupted with joy over Thompson's murder. Many Americans are unable to access health care because they can't navigate the insurance maze or because companies say no to needed treatments in some arbitrary way. Countless people have endured the pain of watching their loved ones suffer and die because invisible bean counters did not check the boxes.
Let me be clear. All murders are bad, but Thompson's murder is especially bad because it was a targeted assassination. There are many countries around the world where helmeted assassins on mopeds routinely shoot executives in crowded streets, then roar away. We don't want to live in those countries. Considering last week's murders, I already think so. I don't want it to get any worse.
There is another method. Even bad events can have good outcomes. While we must never forget that this was the murder of a husband and father of two, Mr. Thompson's death was a result of a “pre-existing condition” that required medical treatment, if not horror. It brought to light the unfairness of the American medical system, which is often ignored. We are the only developed nation without a national health care system, and the man who was just re-elected as president of Obamacare, the most successful innovation in recent memory that has made health insurance available to millions of Americans. I have been against it for many years. Don't forget, he appointed Abi, who has anti-vaccination credentials, as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I have had a spinal reconstruction, a hip replacement, and medical issues for the past five years. And now he has to spend the rest of his life as an insulin addict who shoots up guns in restaurant bathrooms. But while these are annoyances, I feel both deep gratitude for the excellent medical care that the union has obtained for me, and deep sadness that no one else should receive the same. Getting sick is bad enough. Getting sick and being thrust into a Kafkaesque bureaucratic abyss is an atrocity that should not be tolerated by the same species who designed something as elegant and painless as the NovoLog FlexPen with its 4 mm disposable needle. It's an act.
Speaking of which. I hung up on Aetna but didn't call my doctor. I drove to Walgreens. There, the pharmacist showed me a box of Unifine Pentips 4 mm needles. He said it was even better than the needles I was using. Each box costs $27 and no prescription is required. Assuming it's humanly possible, it's $1 more than you would pay at CVS after jumping through the Aetna hoop.
Healthcare is a human right. Americans have lost sight of that. We are a people who have lost sight of many things and are no longer able to cherish our own one precious and fleeting life in this still sunny world. We must work together as compatriots to solve this problem. Shooting each other won't solve anything.
