Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19847

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Taylor B.
Giveaway drugs: good intentions, bad design.
Health Aff (Millwood) 2004; 23:(1):213-7
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/1/213.long

Abstract:

It’s like Christmas every day,” said Casey one hot Tuesday morning last July, while waiting to see our clinic physician. Looking confused, I followed her finger to the uniformed backs of the FedEx and UPS drivers waiting for signatures at the front desk. The padded envelopes and boxes from exotic-sounding senders such as Novartis and Aventis, hailing from far-off locales in New Jersey and Delaware, bring a measure of excitement to our clinic, which serves the low-income population in Bozeman, Montana, 120 miles north of Yellowstone National Park.

The three-month supplies of pills that arrive from the east are saving Casey’s life. Casey has been a patient in the clinic that I direct for as long as I can remember. She has a ruddy complexion and late-night disc-jockey voice. She has lived hard and it shows. She takes Glucophage for diabetes, Prevacid for stomach ailments, and Zestril for high blood pressure. These drugs cost about $165 a month, but her income is at the lowest level of our clinic’s sliding fee scale. To afford these drugs on her own, she would have to stop paying rent or utilities; before seeking care in our clinic, she had simply gone without them.

The cost of the freshly arrived clinic medications to Casey? Free. The cost to the clinic for helping Casey and four hundred other patients to procure them—and the ancillary costs to the patients themselves? Therein lies the rub.

Keywords:
Drug Costs* Drug Industry/organization & administration* Marketing of Health Services/methods*