Kelly Krodel thought a
miracle had arrived just in time — in a drug that could eliminate the
hepatitis C infection she had carried for three decades before it
started to wreck her liver.
Turns
out, she’s going to have to live with the virus a bit longer. As long
as the South St. Paul woman is reasonably healthy, her health insurance
won’t pay the drug’s five- or even six-figure cost.
“Now there’s a cure and I can’t even touch it,” she said. “It makes you so angry.”
Krodel
is one of a growing number of hepatitis C patients in Minnesota caught
in a bind between the exorbitant cost of the year-old medications —
Harvoni, Sovaldi and Viekira Pak — and the tight restrictions insurers
have used to prevent the drugs from busting their budgets.
Labels: access to drugs, drug costs, Minnesota, Personal Stories, treatment criteria