Fuck you for not covering my insulin. INSULIN. You won’t cover fucking INSULIN. You’ll cover birth control pills just fine (and yes I realize they’re used for other purposes, but if they were covered just for that they’d be status exempt drugs and they’re not).
When I called you, you told me you won’t cover it because the “benefit” doesn’t outweigh the “cost.” GEE. I sure am glad the benefit of INSULIN (which would be oh, staying alive?) isn’t as important as the cost of covering 80% of it (a whole $50 a month!). And I sure am glad that, while I might die in the process, at least I won’t get pregnant, because you’ll cover pills that allow me (and others) to fuck virtually worry free of getting knocked up. Might as well get in all the fucking I can before I go into a coma and die.
I guess it’s been nice knowing y’all.
—probably going to die soon
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
Sorry to veer off your rant, but birth control pills ARE covered? Interesting…I don’t have coverage, might be a good thing to look into..
Are there really no other options for people with diabetes? It just seems so unfair 🙁
oooo tell us more OP but know we’re going to be all over you forking out the 20% for worry-free-fucking when a whole $50 would save your life.
Normally it seems that I disagree with Kay, but for this bitch… I wholeheartedly agree. Cut down on the bc pills, give your vag a rest and pay for your meds yourself.
That totally sucks. God, I hate this fucking useless so-called health care system. It’s a complete disgrace and your situation is a perfect example of that. Perhaps you should call Blue Cross and see how much a premium would be for someone in your situation.
That said, I think it’s deplorable anybody should have to go without (cheap) life saving medications like insulin. Nor do I think it beyond a “social worker” to try to play doctor. I hope the OP gets her medicine but I hope she doesn’t have to fuck somebody to get it.
Kay, you don’t need a “social worker” to get this program. It’s automatically offered to low-income families.
Well, somebody told her “the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost.” We can assume that person is an employee/administrator of a social program, hence, “social worker”.
(Insert concept then crank REALLY hard to open, country-girl.)
Hasn’t anyone told you to never assume anything kay? just because it’s a social program doesn’t mean that the person she was speaking to is an employee of only said program. Many csr reps for the government take calls for more than one thing weather it’s provincial or otherwise.
Insert concept then crank harder than that to open, country-girl. You’re playing a game of semantics and you’re losing so, what’s your point again?
I wouldnt’ call it a useless system here though. I have seen it work tremendously on a number of occasions and I am grateful every time I look at my husband that we HAVE a health care system in Canada. There is a good chance I would be a widow now without it so shut your festering gob. Sensitive about it? you bet your ass. This system has it’s flaws as the OP has clearly demonstrated, but that doesn’t mean it thoroughly blows. FAWK.
Tell that to my spouse who has been in unrelenting pain 24/7 and no diagnosis in # fucking years. Tell him how wonderful our health care is, all those 16-18 month waits for specialists and MRIs. We are living a goddamn nightmare.
Kay: I’m the OP and no I’m not on BC pills. I just used that as an example of how ridiculous this is. People are getting their birth control covered and I have to somehow try to manage on the alternative when I was PUT on this insulin because the alternative was giving me extreme lows (at night at that when I was asleep). At one point I’d have to get up every two hours during the night and test my blood sugars and sometimes they’d be so low if I hadn’t set my alarm and woken up I probably wouldn’t’ve woken up at all.
The decision was actually made on a national level, meaning that ANY publicly funded drug plan in Canada won’t fund it. I talked to their pharmacy rep and she told me I could get my doctor to write a letter to them, but it would have to be awfully compelling and to not get my hopes up. The ONLY reason they won’t cover it is because of the cost. BUT, if more people were able to have access to this you’d have more diabetics in better control and less strain on the healthcare system when their bodies go to shit. But hey, we all know how crazy the government it about health prevention programs.
One thing I also found interesting is how they won’t cover smoking cessation products. An anti depressant a friend of mine is on is also branded as Zyban, and in order for him to have his AD version covered he had to get a letter from his doctor stating why he was on it because it was “status exempt”…I’m sorry, but maybe if they covered smoking cessation drugs like zyban, you’d get a lot less people getting sick from smoking related ailments which costs the province a hell of a lot more than the 50 bucks a month it would cost for a year at the most.
Also TTFN: I’ve already been in contact with every insurance company out there. Most won’t cover me at all, but blue cross will cover everything BUT diabetes related medications/illnesses (and I’m sure they could make a case for any ailment I got being the fault of the diabetes). One company said they wouldn’t cover me based on the fact that I was under 30 when I was diagnosed and they don’t cover T1 diabetics at all.
I’m just so mad about this. A box of the stuff costs ~$100-135 and lasts two months. It’s not like it costs the thousands of dollars a month cancer and anti rejection drugs cost that they fully cover. I’m just asking for 80%!
# = 3
This seems completely unreasonable to me. I’m all for birth control pills being covered, but not covering INSULIN? I wonder what the reasoning for that one is…
Don’t know what to tell you TTFN, I’m sorry your spouse is having a hard time. I really am. But no matter what anyone says to me I will ALWAYS be grateful that we have health care here. I could rhyme off 10 people in a shot in my family and within my group of friends who benefited in a huge way from our system.
I mean come on, has anyone watched Sicko? DAMN.
My heart goes out to you, OP. You are being penalized for something you cannot help. This is both ridiculous and very, very sad. Does this mean that all the people with Type 2 diabetes will also be rejected?
Unfortunately, I’ve only seen pain and misery because of this fucking health care system. I could name ten people who were totally screwed around and ended up in far worse shape as a result of the goddamn wait times.
Isn’t night-time low blood sugar remedied with a glass or two of fruit juice? Isn’t insulin required for the high blood sugar? Sorry, I’m no diabetic but I had a friend growing up that used to use her very real diabetes as a reason for store owners to give her free candy… she wasn’t itchin’ for insulin when her blood sugar dropped as far as I could tell. I’m not saying you do that Kitty but help us understand.
I take exception to government funding smoking cessation products… making taxpayers pay to supply alternate methods for nicotine absorption is way beyond what I pay taxes for.
Zyban though, you’re right, it’s an antidepressant with a supposed side effect of not wanting to smoke. I’d rather not pay for that either if it’s to help buddy kick the habit. If he were being treated for depression (life threatening) there are a bunch of SRI products out there that don’t have the lack-of-smoking side effect.
You mentioned BC pills. That’s a tough one. I think the gov’t is right to supplement birth control since the risks (costs) of pregnancy far outweigh the risks (costs) of no pregnancy.
Yup, TTFN! Diabetics of any sort are listed as having a “pre existing illness” and won’t be covered on anything but a group plan for their diabetes. Unfortunately, after this summer my group coverage goes bye bye and I’m up shit creek. Guess it’s back to getting up every two hours to make sure I haven’t gone into a coma (and if I do OH WELL, says the NS government! Betcha it’ll cost you a lot more to keep me alive on a ventilator when i go into a coma than it would to just cover my fucking insulin, you cheap fucks).
I’m on two types of insulin: a long acting and a rapid acting. The long acting mimics the background functioning of a regular pancreas and the rapid deals with the food I eat at that time. My issue here is with the long acting. BUT! They made me get a letter from my doctor regarding why I need the rapid action because if you’re over 19 it’s not considered “conventional” treatment. Apparently diabetic pancreases magically recover when one turns 19. The rapid is pretty much standard treatment. It’s just get this: more expensive (60 bucks for a whole box that lasts me 1.5 months! whoa! that’s completely unreasonable!) Whateves, NS gov’t.
Kay: having low blood sugar will cause brain damage. If your blood sugar goes too low to fast you go into a coma. Also, having jumps in your blood sugar reeks havoc on your body and leads to complications, whether it goes low or high, in fact, I’ve been told by many of my doctors that high blood sugar is less dangerous in the short term than low because low will put you in a coma a lot faster. Drinking a glass or two of fruit juice often does more than bring your sugar back to normal, it makes it spike. So, in a short period of time you have a drop, then a spike and don’t you think that keeping it normal is A LOT better than two rapid changes in sugar levels?
And until YOU experience an incidence of REAL hypoglycemia, Kay (and I’m not talking the hypoglycemia non diabetics experience I’m talking about sugars in the 1-2 range where you can’t function. Last week at the mall I had to get my mom to fish out my dex tabs out of my purse and feed them to me because I couldn’t even manage to get the zipper open I was that shaky and I couldn’t see anything other than blue dots), perhaps you should stfu.
No, I’m not a bitch, I’m just sick and tired of your bullshit, Kay. Usually I try to ignore you, but your stupid assumptions in this thread really pissed me off. Newsflash: the world doesn’t involve around you and your shitty view of the world.
Geeze, Pretty Kitty, it makes you wonder what other provinces do for such coverage. This is so goddamn unfair – this fucking cocksucking province would rather see you die than provide meds for a life-threatening condition. Yet, they don’t mind promoting a $10 million dollar Democracy 250 Horseshit Show and wasting our tax money. GRRRRRRRRR…..
Fuck it. I want to know more.
I wonder if a big steak for supper and no white foods will help keep a steady blood sugar overnight (slow digestion)? White and processed foods reek havoc on the blood sugar of a normal body. Imagine what a single order of fries does to a shitty pancreas!
So, I understand the pancreas is both an endocrine and exocrine gland. I understand it’s responsible for maintaining your blood sugar by producing insulin. I had pancreatitis once and was told fatty foods are hard on your pancreas because of it’s role in digestion. It’s still a bit of a mystery to me.
So, a dose of insulin will RAISE your blood sugar and this is the same (but artificial) insulin a normal pancreas produces? Come on, Kitty. Educate us and don’t be mad if we’re not all living with diabetes.
I’m not assuming anything by asking a question, bitch! Get over me, all ready.
Ummm well, if I don’t eat carbs my blood sugar won’t go up THAT much, but fats and proteins do have some effect on blood sugar. For a carb it spikes sugars right away (or within a few hours) but fats might not do anything for 6-12 hours.
I’m not sure what you meant in your last question, Kay, but the pancreas has two roles in producing insulin: background insulin that’s there all the time called basal insulin and then there’s insulin that YOUR body would release as soon as you even think of eating. My pancreas produces nothing and even if it did my body would attack it and kill it. So, most T1 diabetics are put on two types of insulin: the basal insulin (the stuff I’m taking that they won’t cover) and the bolus that they will cover but give you shit for if you’re over 19. I take the basal once a day and it lasts for 24 hours and has no peak like the alternate (and cheaper) NPH, which you take twice a day and has a peak which means a drop in sugars (which puts my sugars into chaos), and then I take bolus insulin every time I eat and the dosage depends on how many carbs are in the meal (usually 1 unit to every 5 grams of carbs). So, it means up to 6 needles a day, which isn’t bad because the idea is to get my body to react to sugars as if my pancreas hadn’t crapped out.
I SHOULD be on a pump, but those fuckers cost 10 grand a pop and the supplies are EXPPPEEEENSIVE and the province doesn’t cover those either, heh.
TTFN: don’t even get me STARTED on the squandering of money this province partakes in. Perhaps we can open a new call centre to provide shitty paying jobs?
Hey, my computer’s blown up, so no bitches will be posted tonight. Sorry about that; I’ll get them all up in the a.m.
PK– as I read the post, I figured it was you. That’s a shitty deal, especially since birth control is covered. I didn’t even know that was the case and I’m partially in the industry (life insurance mostly), but the problem is they won’t even cover some cancer drugs. In fact there’s a story on CBC.ca about a man in the south shore whose having his drug funding being cut off. My fiancee’s cancer drug (Tamoxifen, the one she didn’t even need really, as we found out) wasn’t covered and she had to shell out 60 bucks every 2 months for it. Sure, it’s only 30 bucks a month, but she was a student and that was groceries for one week, most of the time. She actually had to write a letter to her school drug plan citing financial hardship to have it covered, even then they would only cover 80%. This was after her threatening to go to the media… apparently, they don’t want to be seen as putting hardship on a cancer patient, so they relented. I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a small bit of hope, and when all else fails, make your voice heard. Insurance companies this day in age hate bad press, because of the financial climate now makes their services less and less valid, because people are less willing to shell out 50 bucks a month for something intangible.
Kay— Did you take you medical degree from the Upstairs Medical College too? Because half of you so-called “facts” are well off you marks. Go read a medical text (NOT WIKIPEDIA) before you post.
I applaud your eloquence, Dr. F.
Now say ‘BOOGER’!
BOOGER! Ha!
clearly sex is more important.
Time for some brave soul to find a pro bono lawyer and mount a charter challenge. Aids sufferers get free meds which cost mega dollars but you and other diabetes sufferers are left to fend for yourself.
How does government justify this ?
Why are you less worthy ?
I suppose the government thinks they could do without a little sugar.
that’s totally screwed up….
I have a few relatives who are in a similar situation.
One’s gone into a couple coma’s (stubborn bastard) and the other isn’t quite so severe so they’ve managed to change accordingly quite early and regulate their sugar so far.
It’s quite life-altering and really, people should know more about it. My first experience with it first hand was in grade 2 when a fellow classmate passed out and cleared a whole row of desks during the national anthem (back when it was over the pa every morning).
They gave a high-level explanation (we were kids after all) of what he was going to need to do and to not offer him any food or to switch lunches.
Quite the eye-opener.
Thanks for educating more about this rampant topic PK.
No problem, zZz! Thanks to everyone for not telling me my bitch is stupid 😛
I used some NPH (the alternative) yesterday/the night before to see what would happen and I went hypoglycemic 3 times yesterday and woke up hypoglycemic this morning! I had to stay up an extra two hours to make sure everything was stabilized. And I even ate lots of carbs! If that isn’t a “compelling” reason to pay for my fucking levemir I don’t know what is.
some doctors will give you insulin if you can’t afford it