By Jack P. Maloney
MnSF speaker bureau volunteer

The Senior Federation’s 2006 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Preview does a good job of making Medicare Part D somewhat less incomprehensible. But the article, “Cutting Your Prescription Drug Costs,” leaves out some of the easiest and most accessible ways many Americans could save money on medications.

The sorry fact is that Americans have been sold on pills the way we’re sold on SUVs, cell phones and electric toothbrushes: by creating needs, whether we really need them or not. Just turn on the television and you’ll be bombarded with “ask your doctor about...” commercials. Medication has become one of TV’s top advertisers. Hour after hour, year after year, new “syndromes” are trumpeted, cholesterol levels are redefined and drugs are introduced to cure problems we never knew we had.
It’s true that many medications are necessary. But even if our health problems are largely self-inflicted - obesity, high cholesterol, acid reflux, etc. - we’re told they can be medicated so we can continue our unhealthy ways. In a current TV commercial, a man mourns the loss of his favorite pizza because it gives him heartburn; the ad assures us that we can eat things we know we shouldn’t, if we just take a swig of Mylanta.

And we get the hard sell on costly prescription drugs that, for many of us, may be no more effective than low-cost over-the-counter medicines. Laboratory tests have shown that top-selling Celebrex and Vioxx are no more effective at relieving arthritis pain than cheap Ibuprofen. But makers of Vioxx outspent Budweiser in annual TV advertising and made billions of dollars before the medication was pulled from the market!

TV commercials show glowing images of unnaturally youthful seniors cavorting in Elysian fields, living joyfully forever thanks to glitzy prescription drugs. In case you hadn’t noticed, though, under the cheery picture a rapid-fire voice mutters a gruesome litany about nausea, liver and kidney damage, strokes, heart failure, etc. The sad truth is that any medication may hurt you as much or more than it may help you. And Americans take a lot more medication than anyone else on earth - certainly, more than we need. In WWII, when the nation couldn’t waste gasoline, we were urged to ask ourselves, “Is this trip necessary?” Maybe we should ask the same question about every medication we take.

So any complete article on “Cutting Your Prescription Drug Costs” should include these tips:

• Do not “ask your doctor about” any drug you see on TV. Let your doctor suggest what you need, without being coached or pressured. Prescribing is the job of the doctor, not the TV commercial.
    
• Do ask your doctor if you can address health issues with lifestyle changes rather than pills.
    
• And when prescription drug ads come on your TV, hit the “mute” button.