Suppose you're out for a walk one fine afternoon. Suddenly, You notice your breathing is becoming difficult. The harder you work at getting air in, the less it seems to work. You begin to panic.
Imagine you have a coffee stirrer straw, how thin it is. Now imagine you are under water and that is your air hose. It's just not enough air.
The longer this problem lasts, the more excited you become which makes your dilemma worse.
If you have your rescue inhalor (breather drugs) you can't breathe in well enough to actually get the medication into your system. Now you really, truly think you are going to die.
Others around you panic also. You can't speak but in 2-3 word sentences to tell them what is wrong or what to do to help you. You are drowning in a sea of air; it is all around you but can't get enough of it into your lungs to live.There's a couple of simple drugs out on the market that help to prevent the above from happening. One is called Flovent. It's about $110 for a 30-day supply. There is also one called Symbacort, but that's over $200 a month. This is just to control the disease.
In case you get into trouble, there's the 'rescue drug', which dilates your bronchial tubes so you can breathe again. That one is called albuterol, and that's about $45 for a 30 day supply.
Simple things that you'd ordinarily not bat an eyelash at buying in order to keep your kids alive, right?
What if you're out of work, it's January, you just paid the rent, and you only have $200 to split between heat, food, and drugs? What do you pick?
About 5,000 children per year die from this in the United States...each and every year.
This is just ONE childhood disease that can be prevented by daily administration of drugs. Drugs that would be covered by most health insurance plans. Unless, of course, they deny the coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Of course, we all know that won't be happening anymore, thanks to the recently-passed bill.
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