No Insurance and HIV Medication Prices

This is a brief look at what drug prices are at for HIV medications and why our healthcare system can fall short. This does not only hurt the 40 million in the US without insurance but also those who are underinsured. HIV/AIDS Drugs can run up a huge medical billing, often costing thousands of dollars per month depending on the regimen. A common starting regimen consists of Kaletra (Lopinavir) boosted by Ritonavir/Lamivudine/Zidovudine. The price of a month’s supply for each medication can be as high as 198.99$, 289.99$, 385.88$, 170.00$. This adds up to more then 1k a month in just medication costs. Other starting regimens including atripla can be more then 1500$ for a one month supply. If you don’t have health insurance the cost of your care can exceed your reach with the comination of health related bills. You can even just be underinsured for medication costing you large copays exceeding 500 dollars a month. These factors make it very difficult for uninsured Americans to stay afloat finicnally even if they are working as hard as they possibley can. In the end this can even compromise health care, and forces patients to go without care.

If you recently were diagnosed with HIV all the new medications and treatment options can overwhelm you. It is critical that you start seeing a HIV specialist as soon as possible. They should take labs immediatly to help you start to get a better idea when to start treatment. The NIH did a study and determined the level at which you should begin treatment. Death rates increase if HAART is delayed, started below 0.200 x 10(9) cells/L. Also, nonadherent patients have higher mortality rates than adherent patients with similar CD4+ cell counts. Above a CD4 count of 0.200 x 10(9) cells/L, medication adherence is the critical determinant of survival, not the CD4+ cell count at which HAART is begun.