For 23 years, Diane Whitcraft injected herself every other day with Betaseron, a drug that helps prevent flare-ups from multiple sclerosis. The drug worked well, drastically reducing Whitcraft’s trips to the hospital. But as her 65th birthday approached last September, she made a scary decision: to halt the medication altogether.
With health insurance through her job, Whitcraft had paid a $50 or $100 monthly co-pay for the drug; she hadn’t even realized that the price of Betaseron had soared to more than $86,000 a year. Shopping around for drug coverage through Medicare, the out-of-pocket costs were mind-boggling: close to $7,000 annually.
Written by Carolyn Y. Johnson, The Washington Post
