Thread: Womans meds cut off

Naperville woman's medicine cut off

By Paige Winfield
SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP

Grace Wojtowicz of Naperville has fallen into the doughnut hole and it isn't sweet.

Last February, Wojtowicz, 71, signed up for Medicare Part D, joining the 22.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who now obtain their prescription drugs under the program. At first, her $49 premiums under Part D were less than what she had been paying to order her drugs from Minitdrug, a Canadian pharmacy based in Calgary.

But Wojtowicz is dependent every day upon nine drugs — among them medication for blood pressure, diabetes and her pacemaker — and it only took her five months to reach the $2,250 coverage gap known as the doughnut hole, when Part D participants must pay all of their drug costs until they hit the $3,600 annual ceiling. Once total drug costs reach $3,600, the plan provides 100 percent coverage for the rest of the year.

Wojtowicz didn't want to pay the approximately $300 her drugs cost every month when she used to purchase them from Jewel/Osco.
So last month, she placed an order with Minitdrug, where she could get her drugs at half the cost.



Customs service


Wojtowicz's situation became even more difficult when she received a letter on Sept. 6 from U.S. Customs and Border Protection stating that officials had interdicted her pre-paid orders of two generic drugs.
"I think it was terrible to send that letter to me," Wojtowicz said. "They're treating me worse than an illegal immigrant."

This was the first time Wojtowicz had any trouble receiving her drugs from Minitdrug, although she has been a customer of the pharmacy since 2003.

According to Customs and Border Protection, the agency has seized approximately 40,000 packages of drugs from Canadian pharmacies since last November — coincidentally, the same month Medicare recipients could sign up for Plan D.

The offices of both Reps. Joe Dunn, R-96th District, and Judy Biggert, R-13th District, report receiving an increase in the number of calls from constituents who have had their prescription drugs interdicted by Customs.

Minitdrug President and CEO Barney Britton says that seizure of his pharmacy's packages has massively increased since January, when Customs began grabbing them in blitzes several times a month.



Politically speaking


Although Lynn Hollinger, spokesperson for Customs Border Protection, says the increase in imported drug seizures has nothing to do with the inauguration of Medicare Part D, some speculate that the two are related.
Deane Beebe, communications director of the Medicare Rights Center, says the seizures are no more than a politically driven scare tactic designed to push Medicare recipients into signing up for Part D.

"For every member of congress there are over two drug industry lobbyists," Beebe said. "The administration would like everyone to sign up (for Part D) and pay higher prices for drugs than in any other industrialized nation."



Flying in FDA's face


In 2004, Governor Blagojevich created I-SaveRx — a program that seems to fly in the face of the FDA's drug import regulations.
The program allows the residents of all participating states to import prescription drugs from Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom that have been manufactured by pharmacies inspected and approved by state officials.

But Blagojevich's vigorous championing of I-SaveRx didn't stop the FDA from seizing approximately 50 packages ordered through the program in January and February 2005. Whenever this occurs, the orders are reshipped at no cost to the customer. Although a reorder has yet to be detained, there is nothing to stop Customs from reseizing a package, said Amy Rosenband, spokesperson for the Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

To date, more than 20,600 residents have ordered prescription drugs through I-Save Rx, at 25 to 80 percent of the drugs' equivalent U.S. prices.

Wisconsin, Kansas, Vermont and Missouri also participate in the program.

"These are the exact same medications made by the same manufacturers and they meet or exceed the standards met by U.S. pharmacies," said Rosenband.



The difference


However, some legislators say the FDA's warnings about counterfeit prescription drugs imported by Canadian pharmacies are not to be trifled with. Biggert believes the dangers of such drugs are real and not just politically driven hype.
Biggert said that seniors who purchase prescription drugs through the I-SaveRx program take a risk because they do not know what they are getting — despite the program's claims that purchases are only made from foreign pharmacies that meet the standards of Illinois pharmacies.

"I don't think the (I-SaveRx) plan is a good idea," Biggert said. "They are not providing information on whether these drugs are safe and not counterfeit."



Poison patrol


The FDA advises U.S. residents any foreign medicine may be fake, have the wrong ingredient or have no medicine at all. One such warning was included in the letter from Customs that Grace and Paul Wojtowicz received, featuring a drawing of a venomous, fork-tongued snake wrapped around a pill bottle.
Paul said the drawing looked so frightening that it could push someone with a serious heart condition over the edge.

"That's going to scare someone to death," he said. "I think that's terrible."

However safe or unsafe Canadian drugs may be, they are all subject to seizure by Customs under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which makes illegal the import of any pharmaceutical.

Because legal drugs must be manufactured at an FDA-registered plant and must have labeling approved by the agency, virtually every drug from a Canadian pharmacy is subject to confiscation.



Customs forewarning


Until recently, Customs seemed to turn a blind eye to the many senior citizens who imported from Canada, even those who blatantly took bus trips across the border to bring back their prescription drugs.
Despite increasing seizures, many senior citizens continue to purchase their drugs from Canadian pharmacies.

When Angela Bentsen helped Naperville senior citizens sign up for Medicare Part D last November, she said that a significant number opted out of the plan.

Although Bentsen, who works for Naperville Township Senior Services, warned the seniors that their Canadian drug orders could be interdicted at any time and without warning, she said that most were willing to take the risk.

"The pharmacies that sell from Canada are very user-friendly," Bentsen said. "They are great to the seniors and their customer service is awesome."

Whether Part D raises or lowers a Medicare recipient's prescription drug payments depends upon the drugs they require, Bentsen said. If recipients take mainly the cheaper generic medication, they can get a better deal on Part D, which covers 75 percent of costs after a $250 deductible is paid. But if they rely on the more expensive name brand medications, they can reach the coverage gap very quickly.



No money, no seizures


Hoping to halt Customs' apparently random seizures of imported prescription drugs, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., proposed an amendment to the Homeland Security Department Appropriations Bill for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The amendment would cut funding from Customs for confiscating incoming prescription drugs at borders.
Even though the Senate approved the amendment 68-32 in July, Jon Cooper, health counsel to Sen. Nelson, said he won't be surprised if it is stripped from the legislation when the final draft is negotiated by a conference of House and Senate members.

For now, it's back to Jewel/Osco for Wojtowicz and her husband, Paul, 73. To help save money for Grace's prescription drugs, they will skip their planned vacation and instead take the more economical option of visiting their son, who lives in Florida.

"We're going to have to curtail real great spending of anything," Paul said. "We have to be careful."


— Naperville Sun

09/18/06

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MONDAY
SEPTEMBER 18, 2006




•VOTE: Should U.S. Customs and Border Protection be allowed to intercept prescription drugs from Canada that Americans have ordered?
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They'll let illegal drugs come from the southern border but shut out legals ones from the northern border. Big business can import cheap labor but people on fixed incomes can't import cheaper medications.

This issue has nothing to do with the illegal immigration , but I still would like to post the comment
Augmentin - /antibiotic /costs here $110 for 30 pills , in Russia the same drug is only $8
The medications from other countries are not worse - in 90% they are better than the same ones bought here
Senior Citizens and their drugs are the part of the multi-billion dollars industry - everytime we have a question - we need to go for the money part .
Now , FDA introduced the law recently which will eventually make all the supplements and vitamins as prescription drugs because it cannot fight any more the foreign market and it wants to regulate all those healthy food stores - so the money will go to the drug companies .
This is a huge business - there is a lot to say , but it is also extremely corrupted - to the point of jeopardizing our health and lives in the favor of big bucks

No it's not about illegal immigration.....that's why it's posted in Other Topics.