George Bush Turned My Mother into a Lawbreaker!

After we picked my mother up at the airport, while we were waiting for the return ferry to Bainbridge Island, she handed me an envelope with a letter she had just received from Customs and Border Protection. She said, "Here, read this."

My mother has been using the prescription medication Fosamax for her osteoporosis since 2004. With the new Medicare D prescription drug benefit, she thought she'd fill the prescription at a local pharmacy where it costs $200 (for 12 pills, a three-month supply). Medicare D pays approximately $70 for this medication, and my mom pays the difference. Her $130 out of pocket expense is added to the $70 from Medicare and both are applied to the first level of allowable prescription expenses of $2500. What that means is that even though she is paying most of that expense herself, the full $200 is used to build toward the first ceiling, when Medicare D stops paying and she has to cover all of her prescription expenses herself, until she reaches the next magic ceiling. In addition, she pays $22 a month to have this GREAT program.

Back in 2004 she started using a Canadian pharmacy to fill her Fosamax prescription. For the same drug, her out of pocket expense was only $100. Today that cost would not be applied to her $2500 Medicare D ceiling. So, she decided to go back to the Canadian pharmacy for her prescription. It is simply more cost effective for her. Unfortunately, she did not receive her medication, she received this letter instead from Customs and Border Protection.

Click to read the letter from Custom and Borders

Do you feel safer knowing that your tax dollars are being used so that my mother can't fill her prescriptions at a Canadian pharmacy that she had used for years? This is how our government protects, um, Big Pharma.

Here is the flyer they included with the letter. Pretty scary, huh. There is something so wrong with our elected government these days, I can't even think of a single thing they are doing right.

Click to enlarge