Grendel takes asthma medication twice per day — once in the morning and again in the evening.  His medication, as you may remember, is Flovent (now Flovent HFA).

Until now a single inhaler was approximately $95 for 60 days.  The last two times I've had to get the prescription filled I have been somewhat curious about the more than $10 increase in price (now $108.00).  Outside of the change to an ozone-friendly inhaler, the medication is the same.  So why the increase?

Is it because it's now produced in an ozone-friendly form?  That's my guess.  If it is, I'm happy to pay the extra cost to make sure the medication isn't environmentally harmful.

But I'm suspicious because I started paying more for the prescription before the new HFA form was available.

So what's up with the price increase?

I suspect it's the typical American prescription drug company mentality — we can step all over the American public on cost for prescriptions because we make them pay for all of our overly indulgent executive compensation packages.  These companies, like GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Flovent, claim the exorbitantly high prices in America for these medications is how they recoup costs for research and development.

They claim they can't get the higher costs in foreign countries because the laws in those countries don't allow them to.

Huh…  Isn't that interesting…

Why do we not have those same price protections (I prefer that term over "caps" since they do protect people from the financial rape they suffer in the US for the very same drugs)?

It simply amazes me that Grendel has been on this medication for some time and I thought the original $95 was outrageous.  Here we are, though, with a greater than 10% increase in cost for the very same product.

When will our government give the American people the same protection they get in Canada and other countries where prescription drug companies are not allowed to extort the consumer when it comes to medically needed treatment?