The High Cost of Psychiatric Medications

Our health insurer, Tricare, has begun to send us a monthly statement listing our prescriptions, the retail cost, what they paid, and what we paid. Caroline's prescriptions in the month of January alone would have cost us, without health insurance, $4209.15! The most expensive was the Seroquel, over $1000. Now, some of those were 90 day prescriptions, but, you wonder, what do people do who don't have health insurance, or who are under-insured? We paid nothing for those prescriptions because we had already met our $1000 out-of-pocket catastrophic cap for the fiscal year that started October 1st. If my husband has to leave the Navy, we will really miss Tricare. I would have to go and get a job most likely, especially if if we had to pay for more than a small percentage of those drugs, because it would kill our living expenses. I am prepared to do that if necessary, but that would mean I would be that much less available to Caroline during the summer months and during those times of "crisis". Not a good thought. No drug should cost so much that you can't put food on the table. I am a conservative politically, but healthcare is a huge problem that must be solved for the millions who do not have the kind of coverage that we do! No one should go bankrupt because they must pay thousands of dollars for their prescriptions, or end up unable to work, have relationships, or just plain have a life.