Price Of Breathing

It was summer last year, pollen allergies were at peak in California’s history, and I was preparing for a brutal fight of life against asthma, by just breathing the puff out of a tube. But the biggest problem I was facing was that I had run out of inhalers. I thoughtlessly shrugged off the situation and began searching the Internet to get started on buying my first batch inhalers in the United States, because I had only been using my own inhalers from Iran. But it was then that I learned that I took those inhalers from Iran for granted, a cheaper and weaker inhaler cost about 15 times more with insurance in United States.

Nothing brings about more disappointment than high expectations, especially when your expectations feel fair and just. Comparing a war-torn, third-world, developing, theocratic country, Iran, to the world’s most influential, biggest super power and freedom promoting country, the United States, brought about the expectation of at least cheaper inhalers for my right to breath. I don’t buy my medication from the world’s most influential, biggest super power and freedom promoting country, because I can’t pay more than 15 times the price for a cheaper and weaker brand. I’m prescribed and relied on using the Swedish Symbicort 320/9 mcg 60-dosed inhaler, an inhaler that isn’t even available in the United States, making the U.S. the only major country in the world that doesn’t carry the inhaler. However, call it lucky or unlucky, United States does carry some form of inhalers, being limited to generic inhalers and some “brand” names. A generic inhaler with half the dosage would’ve cost me about $150 with insurance Aetna, meaning I have to buy two for the same amount that I need, costing me $300. You can get my prescribed popular high quality dosed inhaler in Iran, for less than $20. The worst part is that drug prices aren’t even regulated in Iran, so pharmacies can put any price on them, and the most they could profit from in Iran, is $20.

Aetna website FAQs were bolded with questions such as “Why isn’t my medications covered” and “Why do my prescription costs so much” made the situation even more stupefying by providing explanations such as the drugs being “experimental” and simply “too expensive over generic brands”. According to New York Times, the drugs used to cost normal until they were “re-patented”, and pharmaceutical companies’ rational is “competition”. Thankfully, Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, explores the matter a little more, showing how the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry is completely unregulated, to the point that the government has absolutely no power in the field, while the companies run the economy. The healthcare and pharmaceutical companies remain the top profitable companies in the U.S.

This whole situation has resulted in a one of a kind country, where there is a price tag on your ability to breath, and the price tag is upwards of thousands of dollars per year, something that even war-torn third-world theocratic developing countries do better. There is bbba reason United States is the greatest country in the world, because we the nation can choose our systems by voting. But we’re just not grateful enough to exercise our rights and demand a deserved humane system. It is for that very same reason, we as a nation have allowed companies to put a price tag on our lives and as long as they are in power, then we deserve to pay thousands of dollars to have the right of breathing.

Ahmad Mir Mohammad Sadeghi