Chantix is nothing if not well packaged, foregoing the ugly brown pill vial for a very sleek set of cardboard contraptions that organizes your dosages by week, day, and meal. I thought that the idea was borne of great wisdom, Pfizer recognizing that quitting smoking shakes up a routine and, therefore, sought to replace it with an easy and temporary regime of pill popping. Now that is something worth paying for, and when I went to fill the first month’s “starter kit,” I paid the hefty price for the meds, thinking, Well, I probably spend about that per month on cigarettes anyway, so it’s a wash.
I even got over the fact that my UnitedHealthcare plan doesn’t cover the medication, which is no easy accomplishment for a Jew working in the arts. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely complained plenty about UHC, for under my plan, Viagra costs $10 per month, but they don’t cover smoking-cessation products. It makes no sense for very obvious reasons, the most ironic of which is that smoking can cause impotence, but I will leave it at that and say that I found an inner peace in paying for the long-term benefits that Chantix would help me to attain.
So I regularly swilled down the pellets in the most elegant and satisfying ways I could—be they with a good cabernet at Peter Luger’s, or with orange juice after a poached egg on toast, or with a tequila shot at a friend’s dinner party—all the while collecting the “Good for you!” comments that have sustained me from supporting friends. I am pretty pleased with myself, I must admit, and patting myself on the back all the way to the pharmacy this morning, I braced myself for another hit to the bank account as I got my first refill of the medication.
Well, I learned this morning that Pfizer is at once wise, crafty, and opportunistic, as I swallowed my pride, did some quick computing in my head, made several Duane Reade staffers triple-check the price, and felt my face turning red. In her sweet sub-continental accent, the pharmacist told me, “Sure, the starter month is expensive, but the regular kit costs this,” indicating the label staring me down from the countertop. This=DOUBLE THE FIRST MONTH.
So what argument am I supposed to come up with now? Shucks, no big deal. I didn’t want to have dinner at per se this month anyway?
What is really disturbing is that Pfizer is profiting from my addiction, weaning me from cigarettes and increasing my dependence on their drug, just to boost the price after one month. Isn’t that sort of like what the tobacco companies did: created or increased addiction to turn a greater profit? Talk about something that could drive one to smoke again!
“Does this come with some company stock?” I asked the pharmacist, as I swiped my credit card.
1 comment:
This is just like the time my mother was approached on the elementary school playground by a cigarette company rep. He was handing out starter three-packs of menthol cigarettes. My mother was 11.
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