When should insurance companies be held responsible for medical malpractice?– Niran S. Al-Agba, MD | September 25, 2018

In July, 2009, the family of Massachusetts teenager Yarushka Rivera went to their local Walgreens to pick up Topomax, an anti-seizure drug that had been keeping her epilepsy in check for years.

Rivera had insurance coverage through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid insurance program for low-income children, and never ran into obstacles obtaining this life-saving medication.

But in July of 2009, she turned 19, and when, shortly after her birthday, her family went to pick up the medicine the pharmacist told them they’d either have to shell out $399.99 to purchase Topomax out-of-pocket or obtain a so-called “prior authorization” in order to have the prescription filled. 

CDC on Prescription Drugs – from the CDC’s Public Health Professionals Gateway (Page last updated: June 15, 2018)

State Laws on Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse

The United States is experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of prescription drug[?] overdose deaths.

This hasn’t been true since the early 2000’s and is completely untrue after 2010. The CDC us still firmly entrenched in the 90’s and ignoring heroin and fentanyl, which are the cause of most overdose deaths by now.