Why so few Medicare prescription plans cover asthma inhalers like Qvar

Posted by greybemer @greybemer, Oct 7 4:56pm

My prescription Medicare plan UnitedHealth Care raised the cost $100
Per month for premium and raised the deductible as well and they are the only plan that even covers Qvar my asthma inhalers…something has been done for insulin but no one even talks about the cost of inhalers for asthmatics!

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ecmoandrrt | @ecmoandrrt | Oct 7 6:49pm

What a rip off. It's Beclomethasone(patent 1962) which has been around awhile. The drug makers change an isomer and re sell it. Maybe you can get another steroid MDI that's so much cheaper. I was using that back in 1976. Becotide (beclomethasone) MDI.
My Asthma is environmental. Those QD MDIs do nothing for me. Do you have Eosinophile or allergic Asthma?

Sue, Volunteer Mentor | @sueinmn | Oct 7 8:15pm

@gretbemer Have you looked at other Medicare Part D Drug Formularies? Mine covers the generic version of QVar (I use Symbicort, the name brand co-pay is over $100 per inhaler, the generic is $5 - 15.)
Have you tried the generic version?

greybemer | @greybemer | Oct 7 9:22pm

In reply to @sueinmn "@gretbemer Have you looked at other Medicare Part D Drug Formularies? Mine covers the generic version..." + (show)

@sueinmn I’ll ask the doctor about this this month thanks

greybemer | @greybemer | Oct 7 9:27pm

In reply to @ecmoandrrt "What a rip off. It's Beclomethasone(patent 1962) which has been around awhile. The drug makers change..." + (show)

@ecmoandrrt I have mast cell disorder diagnosis after hospital stay from Covid they won’t get back to normal so yes I’m allergic to lots of foods and had hives when I was young took allergy shots and this helped with environmental allergies but food not so much and have to avoid food with high histamine now and asthma started when I was 50 allergic to dust mites etc

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