The truth is that real seniors are forced to make choices between taking the medication their doctors tell them they need to take or buying food and groceries. Two such people are Dot Lamb and Vi Quirion . Dot is an 86 year old resident of Portland, Maine. She worked for over thirty years as a nurse. Neither Medicare nor her supplemental insurance cover any of her prescription drug costs.
Dot takes five prescription drug medications.
Dot s doctor would like to prescribe some of the new arthritis medications, but they are too expensive for Dot to add to her medicine cabinet. This is more than 20 percent of her monthly income. Her monthly prescriptions and other fixed costs leave her with little remaining funds. She worries constantly about her monthly prescription costs and believes it exacerbates her asthma. Dot says she can t understand why these drugs are so expensive for elderly people who live on fixed incomes.