So as the community may or may not know, I work at a large law firm in New York. Coming from a background of a lot of lawyers, but no firm lawyers, I started here kind of expected it to be the seat of all evil... and found for the most part, it's just people, just working. Most people who work here aren't attorneys, they're just folks trying to support themselves and their families. The attornies aren't evil, most of them are actually quite nice and they're just working also. It just so happens that what they're working on at best doesn't interest me and at worst conflicts somewhat with my morals, instilled in me by aforementioned non-firm lawyers.
In September I worked on a project for a pharmaceutical company client, some research into cholesterol-lowering drugs, or statins, and what form they took. The goal of this research was to try to argue that the company wasn't avoiding allowing a generic to be made (and therfore losing a lot of profit) by switching it from a capsule to tablet, but making it more like the other similar drugs on the market. Whatever. I typed up a little email memo about my research and send it off to the attorney. I made jokes about how terrible it was to work for the people trying to keep drugs that people need prohibitively expensive, but jokes in similar ways to ones I make about children losing their arms mining the diamonds for our client in a kind of but-my-hands-are-tied way...
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I get a phone call from my Dr., following up on some routine blood work/check-up. He wants me to come in, I have extremely high cholesterol. He's be testing my blood and liver and everything else since then and finally yesterday put me on a statin to bring down the cholesterol. I went to get the prescription filled for this drug that likely I'll have to take for the rest of my life to control my cholesterol... and it's a $50 copay. Because there is no generic. And, at some, level this is my own fault. Fuck.
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2 comments:
wow. karma is a cruel ironic bitch.
but, if you think about it, your hands really were tied. not even so much by the job, but just by the whole healthcare system. it sucks. it would have gotten you somehow, you know? generic or no generic. healthcare is the new bubonic plague.
just something good about statins--we have a trial going on here to use them to lower risk of breast cancer and it seems to be doing really well. so maybe that fifty dollar co-pay is also saving your life from a serious diagnosis. i'd pay 50 a month to prevent cancer for sure.
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