vlogbrothers
The 1200% Increase in my Prescription Drug Costs
YouTube: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=bPf8vwnoEtU |
Previous: | Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award |
Next: | I OWN WARNER CHILCOTT! |
Categories
Statistics
View count: | 664,150 |
Likes: | 15,888 |
Comments: | 3,177 |
Duration: | 04:00 |
Uploaded: | 2011-01-24 |
Last sync: | 2024-12-22 01:30 |
Citation
Citation formatting is not guaranteed to be accurate. | |
MLA Full: | "The 1200% Increase in my Prescription Drug Costs." YouTube, uploaded by vlogbrothers, 24 January 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPf8vwnoEtU. |
MLA Inline: | (vlogbrothers, 2011) |
APA Full: | vlogbrothers. (2011, January 24). The 1200% Increase in my Prescription Drug Costs [Video]. YouTube. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bPf8vwnoEtU |
APA Inline: | (vlogbrothers, 2011) |
Chicago Full: |
vlogbrothers, "The 1200% Increase in my Prescription Drug Costs.", January 24, 2011, YouTube, 04:00, https://youtube.com/watch?v=bPf8vwnoEtU. |
In which Hank is pissed off because the price of his prescription drugs went up 1200% in one month. So he asks nerdfighteria to write a nice letter to Roger Boissonneault at rboissonneault@wcrx.com.
If you could ask him why the price went up so much, why the program expired four months early, and why no effort was made to contact my doctor about these dramatic changes, that would be fantastic. Also, whatever else you want to say.
I feel a little bit like this was a heroin deal "first time's free" kind of thing. Apparently, drug companies have the same marketing strategies as drug dealers...nice to know they're in such good company.
HERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS TO NERDFIGHTASTIC THINGS:
Shirts and Stuff: http://dftba.com/artist/30/Vlogbrothers
Hank's Music: http://dftba.com/artist/15/Hank-Green
John's Books: http://amzn.to/j3LYqo
======================
Hank's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hankgreen
Hank's Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hankimon
Hank's tumblr: http://edwardspoonhands.tumblr.com
John's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/realjohngreen
John's Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/johngreenfans
John's tumblr: http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com
======================
Other Channels
Crash Course: http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse
SciShow: http://www.youtube.com/scishow
Gaming: http://www.youtube.com/hankgames
VidCon: http://www.youtube.com/vidcon
Hank's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/hankschannel
Truth or Fail: http://www.youtube.com/truthorfail
======================
Nerdfighteria
http://effyeahnerdfighters.com/
http://effyeahnerdfighters.com/nftumblrs
http://reddit.com/r/nerdfighters
http://nerdfighteria.info/
A Bunny
((
( - -)
((') (')
If you could ask him why the price went up so much, why the program expired four months early, and why no effort was made to contact my doctor about these dramatic changes, that would be fantastic. Also, whatever else you want to say.
I feel a little bit like this was a heroin deal "first time's free" kind of thing. Apparently, drug companies have the same marketing strategies as drug dealers...nice to know they're in such good company.
HERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS TO NERDFIGHTASTIC THINGS:
Shirts and Stuff: http://dftba.com/artist/30/Vlogbrothers
Hank's Music: http://dftba.com/artist/15/Hank-Green
John's Books: http://amzn.to/j3LYqo
======================
Hank's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hankgreen
Hank's Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hankimon
Hank's tumblr: http://edwardspoonhands.tumblr.com
John's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/realjohngreen
John's Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/johngreenfans
John's tumblr: http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com
======================
Other Channels
Crash Course: http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse
SciShow: http://www.youtube.com/scishow
Gaming: http://www.youtube.com/hankgames
VidCon: http://www.youtube.com/vidcon
Hank's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/hankschannel
Truth or Fail: http://www.youtube.com/truthorfail
======================
Nerdfighteria
http://effyeahnerdfighters.com/
http://effyeahnerdfighters.com/nftumblrs
http://reddit.com/r/nerdfighters
http://nerdfighteria.info/
A Bunny
((
( - -)
((') (')
Good morning, John. I'm a little bit pissed off right now. Ok, I'm very pissed off and one of the only things that makes me feel better when I'm very pissed off is to reorganize my bookshelf, so I'm gonna do that right now while I hopefully as calmly as possible explain to you why I'm so pissed off.
Ok, so for those of you who don't know, I have a disease. It's a chronic illness, no known cure for it, it's called ulcerative colitis and it has a whole bunch of horrible symptoms that you do not want me to explain to you. If you really want to know you can Google it, but you probably just take my word for it. There's a medicine for ulcerative colitis, it's called Asacol. I've been taking it for like five years. So the price of Asacol kept going up and up and up and then a new drug came on the market called Apriso and Apriso was basically the same drug for significantly cheaper. So I switched from Asacol to Apriso. And then, very soon after I switched, the company that made Asacol created a new drug called Asacol HD.
(By the way, beautiful bookshelf all done.) And they said to everybody, "Hey! Asacol HD is back, it's out, it's just in time for Asacol to go generic and it's even better than Asacol. It's basically the exact same thing but we can call it something different enough that we can extend our patent. And the kicker is Asacol used to be three hundred dollars a month - this is only gonna be fifty dollars a month!" And I was, of course, ecstatic.
And so for the last three months I've been on the same medication. It's been great, I love it, I got my auto refill all worked out at the pharmacy so I walk in the pharmacy, I don't even have to call beforehand, and they get it ready for me and she's like "I got some news for you. I'm afraid that the price of this drug has gone up." And I'm like, "That's not a big deal, it used to be three hundred dollars and now it's only fifty. How much could it have gone up?" These numbers right here? That's how much it's gone up. Only six hundred and twenty for me. Twelve hundred percent increase in one month!
So this is the patient savings card that lets me get Asacol for fifty dollars a month. So I'm thinking maybe there's something I missed on the card, and there is. There's an expiration date - April 1st, 2011. Which is funny, for a couple of reasons. One, because obviously, ah, this card expired before April 1st, 2011. Second, April 1st, 2011 is April Fools Day. So they're just playing a little joke on us! Playing a little joke on all the people who rely on their medication to not have horrible, painful lives.
So this thing that the pharmacist gave me has a 1-800 number I can call. I call the 1-800 number and it says, "I'm sorry. Due to larger than usual call volume, you may have an extremely long wait. Would you like to leave a message and one of our representatives will get back to you ASAP?" And so I was like, "Fine, I'll leave a message." The answering machine thing said "We're sorry, the mailbox you have called is currently full." You know what the number should do? You should call and it'll be an automated message saying, "Hello! Thank you for calling. We don't care."
So yeah, I'm pissed off and I can afford it. And I have extra medication left over. Think of all the people who can't afford it and don't have extra medication left over. What are those people going to do? Why is this ok? There's no reason the price of medication should go up. It's the same medication that they've been making for twenty years. They didn't try to contact my doctor so that we could work something out before the colossal twelve hundred percent increase in the cost of the medication. And the listed expiration date on the patient savings card, April Fools Day, was obviously just made up for fun.
I'm pissed off enough that I spent a good part of this weekend searching for ways to contact Warner Chilcott. Warner Chilcott being the company that makes this medication. And I managed, through the magic of the internet and some investigative techniques to find the phone number of the CEO of Warner Chilcott, and I'm gonna call him right now. So I don't expect Roger Boissonneault to call me back. I did however find his email address and emailed him. I'm gonna put the email address in the description below and I encourage people to, ah, think about this situation complexly, um, be civil, and ah, let him know how you feel, ah, about what his company's done. Hopefully they'll change the policy. And if they don't, John, Nerdfighteria, I think we should work together to make Warner Chilcott a, ah, a new curse word.
The only reason companies will stop doing BS like this is if people stand up to it and say, "That is not ok."
John, thank you very much. I would appreciate it if you in your next episode help me understand this situation complexly and stop being so pissed off about it cause it's hard when you're on the inside of something like this. And obviously there are much greater injustices in the world, and at this point I feel like I should emphasize that this is not a me issue. We can fix me. But that's not what we need to do. We need to fix this for everyone. We need to say to these companies that it's not ok for them to Warner Chilcott us like that. Hehehe, aha, I like the sound of that. Thanks everyone for your well wishes, John I look forward to your video on Wednesday.