Now that you know there are programs out there to help you get your much needed medicine, how do you know if you qualify? Here are the General Qualification Guidelines:
1)Annual gross income must be less than outlined below.
2)You must not have insurance coverage that pays for your medicine.
3)You must be a legal US citizen or resident.
Income Guidelines:
2008 FEDERAL POVERTY ANNUAL GUIDELINES:
FAMILY SIZE 200% of FPL
1 $20,800
2 $28,000
3 $35,200
4 $42,400
5 $49,600
6 $56,800
7 $64,000
8 $71,200
Free Medicine
1)Annual gross income must be less than outlined below.
2)You must not have insurance coverage that pays for your medicine.
3)You must be a legal US citizen or resident.
Income Guidelines:
2008 FEDERAL POVERTY ANNUAL GUIDELINES:
FAMILY SIZE 200% of FPL
1 $20,800
2 $28,000
3 $35,200
4 $42,400
5 $49,600
6 $56,800
7 $64,000
8 $71,200
Free Medicine
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1 comment:
Don't feel too sorry for the drug companies that give away medicine to the poor.
In her book, Dr. Marcia Angell, a former editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, makes these points:
Drug marketing and administration consume 31% to 36% of sales revenue while costs for much-ballyhooed research and development amount to only 11% to 14% of sales.
The after-tax cost to develop a new drug and bring it to market is closer to $100 million than the $802 million figure frequently cited.
In developing drugs and bringing them to market, the drug industry performs a valuable service. However, publicly-funded medical research, not the drug industry itself, is the major source of innovative drugs.
The drug industry prefers the sure bet of copy-cat drugs to risky innovative drugs. In 2002, for example, 71 of the 78 drugs approved by the FDA were variations of old drugs which were deemed no better than drugs already on the market.
The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act extended monopoly rights for brand-name drugs. Drug-company attorneys have since figured out how to use incessant litigation against generic drug makers to extend patents far longer than lawmakers intended.
The drug industry has gone a long way toward capturing both the FDA and the NIH by contributing heavily toward the budget of the former (as authorized by Congress) and by paying senior NIH scientists hefty consulting fees and stock options. Drug companies also give copiously to Congressional political campaigns to secure extended patent rights, huge tax breaks, FDA subservience, and legislation favorable to the industry.
Drug companies heavily influence medical research thanks to lucrative financial arrangements between the companies and medical school faculty and researchers, and to the fact that drug research is sponsored by the companies that make the drugs being studied. Drug companies use various strategies to rig drug trials and "to prevent double-blind drug trials that pit one drug against another, instead of against a placebo." They use their influence to control the design of the studies, analysis of the data, and the decision whether to publish the results. Unfavorable results are often suppressed while favorable results are trumpeted.
Drug companies use "Phase IV" studies, which were intended to look for unknown side effects, as an excuse to pay doctors to put their patients on a company's new drug, which can induce doctors to enroll patients inappropriately.
". . . Americans with minor ailments suffer more from overmedication, and all the side effects and drug interactions that go with it, than from undermedication."
Young, attractive drug reps (one for every five or six practicing physicians) roam hospitals and doctors offices, handing out food, flattery, friendship and expensive gifts along with information on their companies' products.
Beyond marketing costs, drug companies spend billions on "education" to promote their drugs for "off-label" uses, to pay for and influence the content of doctors' continuing medical education (required to maintain medical licenses), to pay for educational events and junkets for doctors, and to support professional medical societies.
At Preferred Prescription Assistance they help you cut through the big business red tape and get you what you need...your medicine.
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