It is not supposed to make sense

Kitchen with fire (but no cat)

We had our first real snow today and it was very cold indeed. We have the fire in the kitchen set at 70° and Monika does not stray very far from it.

I am immersing myself in the phantasmagorical American health care system - which is like walking through glue while being lost in a maze.

I have a prescription for Migraine medicine and in Vienna I could get as much as I needed at a minimal cost. Here I can get only 9 tablets per month on my health insurance – but can buy more if I have a prescription.

So I usually buy an additional 8 tablets per month from the CVS pharmacy I use for my other prescriptions. This has cost me from $38 to $128 – I think it depends on the phase of the moon.

But in the NYT on the weekend I saw an article about a website called Goodrx. If you type in your medication and zip code you can find out which pharmacies in your area have the cheapest medication.

I discovered that there is another CVS pharmacy – not far from me – which will sell me my tablets at a cheaper price than I can get them from my regular CVS pharmacy.

But there are other places – such as Kroger – where I can get them even cheaper.

And then there are places like Wal-Mart and Kroger where you can get certain types of medicine REALLY cheaply – but of course none of these are the ones I use.

I told my doctor that this makes no sense to me and he said that it makes no sense to him either - but that we had to go with the flow.

I read another story that said that the cost to a hospital for a stainless steel replacement hip joint is $350 – and the hospital charges the patient up to $17,000 – depending on the hospital – there is no standard price.

The system here is that the hospital sends the health insurance company a stupendously outrageous bill – and then they negotiate a settlement – screwing the ass off the customer for the co-payment.

It is no wonder the health system is completely shagged.