Shopping in Another Open Diary refugee

Went to Trader Joes this afternoon… spent eighty dollars on groceries and got most of our shopping done in one place. Alas the pumpkin bars are history for another year… I was really hoping to get more of them but they’re sold out. :( On the good side, I happened to look at their small section of vitamins and they had glucosamine for $10 a bottle, and vitamin D and flaxseed oil for $5 each. I haven’t taken vitamins for a couple of weeks and I was on half-rations for a few weeks before that to make them last longer, and I can really tell… my joints have been hurting on a daily basis. So it was great to be able to buy more, especially the glucosamine. Ten dollars a month is about a third of what they cost at Walgreens. That’s really going to matter going forward… we got the basic paperwork for the new compulsory health insurance and it’s not pretty. While the premium has been cut in half, and they’ve made stupid ‘health savings accounts’ compulsory, the insurance doesn’t pay for ANYTHING at all including prescriptions until you’ve covered the $3000 basic deductible. And after that you have to pay 20% of the cost of generic prescriptions (more for things that don’t COME in a generic, like my Advair…) I thought the thirty dollars a month copay was a bit steep, but we’re going to have to eat the whole price come January. I was going to stop taking it altogether and take my chances, but John doesn’t want me to. I’ve got one waiting to be picked up now, and then I’ll get one in exactly 30 days and another right at the end of December… then if I keep them in a cool place and make each inhaler last two months instead of one, I should be able to manage. He also looked it up and found out that you can get the stuff for $80 in Canada, versus $350 here. I didn’t think you were allowed to import anything (thanks FDA) but he says you can. We’ll see…

(bitter rant about health insurance and the US medical system deleted… either you know it already, or you’re not in the US so you don’t need to worry…)