4 ms·

Empirical evidence says that is not the case; and that most people who need them have to fight their insurance company for them on a semi-regular basis. If only

• randallsquared 12y ago
  Spending 10-15 hours on the phone two weeks a year to get the insurance company to pay 3K/month of medicine is cheaper for most people than spending 300/month themselves. Even if, as in this example with numbers pulled from nowhere, it's 1/10th the cost in monetary terms, the risk is not worth the savings for a drug that is actually necessary, rather than recreational or mere enhancement. A flatmate of mine has an immune deficiency disease which requires a drug every week which costs more than 3K/month, which is covered by her healthcare. If she doesn't get it, within a few months she'll be in the hospital with serious infections. She has to fight with the healthcare folks two or three times a year to remind them that this is actually a life-or-death matter for her, and then they grumble and continue paying. It in no way makes sense for her to start paying money out of pocket for questionable drugs from a source that might cease to exist in a month or two. If nothing else, assuming she needed to get it through "legitimate" channels again, they would use the time when she officially wasn't getting it as evidence that she doesn't need it. The risk around quality and continuing availability mean that there's no good way to use a shadowy market for anything which is actually required for life, if it's even semi-rare.