The FDA drug scam that has your health insurance carrier licking its chops… I hope you're sitting down - because if you aren't, this one's going to knock you down…
In a brazen (and unprecedented) bastardization of the supposedly "laissez-faire" market system in this country, the Food and Drug Administration has recently concluded that it has the LEGAL RIGHT to force the over-the-counter (OTC) sale of powerful drugs that are currently available only by prescription. But before you shout "hurrah" because you'll no longer need to visit the doctor to get these drugs, consider this: They may end up costing you two or three times as much! Now I can almost hear you saying to yourself, "Wait a minute, Doc. Over-the-counter drugs are always cheaper than prescription - just look at Motrin and Ibuprofen." True, when substances are deregulated, they often become less costly. However, I'll bet dollars to donuts that the retail price of any newly ordained OTC drugs will far exceed the typically small co-pay amount most people currently part with to get these same drugs through their prescription plan. That's right: You'll probably pay more for these medicines, while insurance companies will save millions by no longer having to pay a portion of their cost… Pretty slick, huh? It doesn't take a genius to see that the FDA is scratching the backs of the big insurance companies on this one. And the worst part about it is that they'll likely sell this plan to an unwitting public (which doesn't include Daily Dose readers, of course) as a "new milestone in medical freedom." ****************************** What shameless pandering! And here's an even more important benefit of this proposed policy to insurance companies: By removing doctors from the medication process (at least with regard to the de-prescription-ized drugs), they avoid all liability in those inevitable cases of adverse reactions, overdose, or abuse. After all, if there's no M.D. involved, there can't be any malpractice, right? How convenient! The bottom line is this: If you buy any kind of medicine over the counter without the written recommendation of a doctor what used to be called a prescription), you're not protected by any of the safeguards that typically apply to a "patient." So if this FDA power-grab becomes a reality, the only thing that will stand between you and the harmful side effects of these once heavily regulated substances will be the microscopic warning labels written in "doctor-ese" on the sides of the bottles… That's a pretty flimsy shield, don't you think?
Doing the math,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
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