Healthcare Hullabaloo: Extreme Couponing

If horse racing is the sport of Kings (and Drag racing the sport of Queens), it’s apparent that Extreme Couponing is the sport of bored housewives. The hit TLC show documents the sport’s many participants - people compete by combining manufacturer’s coupons, double coupon policies, and in store specials to acquire unneeded groceries for little or no money. They proudly display their at-home basement stock rooms, where rows of shelves display their caches of peanut butter, energy bars, and laundry detergent.

Food hoarding like this hasn’t been seen since the Y2K crisis.

You can’t ask these people a logical question, like “why does a post-menopausal woman like you need 98 boxes of Tampax”? It isn’t usually about needs. For these people, it’s a form of sport. From where I stand, it’s a sign of mental illness.

With the emerging formulary battle between health insurers and Big Pharm, I can foresee that we soon will see ‘Extreme Couponing – Pharmacy Edition” where desperate housewives will double their discounts on their favorite pharmaceuticals, acquiring a at-home stash of drugs that would make Owsley jealous. They’ll be adding new racks in their basement stockrooms just to store their discount collections of Lipitor, nexium, and other prescriptions that offer discount coupons….

On a more serious note, people are asking me about my take on the formulary wars. Like watching your Mother-In-Law drive off a cliff in your new BMW, my feelings on this subject are mixed.

On the positive side, Big Health formulary policies are helping guide patients to more affordable drugs that they might otherwise have been unaware of. Big Pharm’s coupons also significantly lower the out of pocket expense for many patient’s prescriptions.

On the negative side, formularies are almost allowing Big Health to make medical decisions and exercise their medical opinion – something that they have no right to do. And Big Pharm’s coupons are really just a band-aid fix that only serves to mask the real issue – the way over-priced prescription medicine.

All in all, the whole formulary battle is really something akin to “Spy vs. Spy” – in other words, the battle will vacillate back and forth month to month with no clear long term victor. The only certain outcome will continue to be the long term loser – the American health care consumer – who will continue to face ever-escalating costs for their health insurance premiums and prescription medications.

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Who are you? Do you agree with me, disagree with me, or have another perspective to share?

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