Postpartum Depression

This blog post is not about how the health care industry discriminates against women. Nor does this post demonstrate conclusively that Ben Paine is a closet sexist (pshew!). And it is barely about the new miracle drug for postpartum depression. Rather, this post is a commentary on Ben’s Care, that the single reason for the high cost of health care in the United States is private health care insurance. Hearing about this new drug on the radio inspired this post.

Postpartum Depression. Boo! The FDA just approved a cure. Yeah! They want $34,000 for it. Boo! Maybe insurance will cover it. I hope NOT! 

Without a cure, women who suffer from PPD suffer, a lot! But many such women already take cheap anti-depressants to help them make it through, so who needs a $34,000 miracle cure? Sometimes when we suffer, we tough it out it rather than cover it over with a pill; suffering makes us stronger and more empathetic of other people’s problems. Finally, with my tongue just lightly grazing my cheek, maybe PPD serves an evolutionary need, that a cure might defeat. Like choosing “not to suffer this again, no more kids for me!” The planet really does NOT need more humans. 

I understand the service this new drug may provide, but if insurance pays for it, it will just boost the price of health insurance, once again, for all of us.* Americans are the stupidest people on Earth: they want health insurance to cover every damn thing, but they resent it when health insurance responds with inevitable – and justified – price increases. Some readers will accuse me of sexism for these sentiments. No way! Imagine a potency injection that guarantees men hard erections and healthy sperm for a lifetime, at $34,000 / shot. Should health insurance pay for it? Of course not, and for the same reasons that they should not cover this PPD cure.  It will cause a jump in the price of your health insurance, for something that is not absolutely necessary and for which there are much cheaper (if less effective) alternatives.

Imagine that NO health insurance will ever cover a drug that is priced at $34,000. How many people do you imagine will pay for it out of pocket? I would say – in a huge understatement – not enough to allow the price to stay so high.  No drug manufacturer ever got rich pricing its meds out of reach of 95% of the population that needs it. 

Check out Ben’s Care. 

*  The Math: There were 3,853,472 births in the U.S. in 2017 and 11.5% of women who deliver children suffer from PPD. Doing the math, there were 443,149 cases of PPD in the U.S. in 2017. At a cost of $34,000 per case for this new miracle drug, health insurance would have paid out $15 billion, causing a hike in the annual cost of health care for every American of $46 / person or $120 / household (@ 2.58 persons / household) (not including any profit for the insurance companies). For one medication affecting 1 in 745 Americans. If insurance refuses to pay for it, and Supply and Demand has a chance to work its magic, the price of the drug must collapse, most likely to $1,000 per case, or less. In the end, the choices are 443,000 American women paying $1,000 to handle their PPD or grin and bear it, or every American household getting a price hike in their health insurance costs of $120 all because of one new med. If we elect to have insurance pay for it, we ought to stop grumbling about the ever-increasing cost of health insurance.