God I hate this disease
Att: Ulcerative Colitis - not Crohn's!
http://lipid-therapeutics.com/english/colitis.html
http://lipid-therapeutics.com/english/produkt.html
soon... (study phase III starts in a few months)
(and it's also possible to get somewhat-like-it right now)
Judging by your use of the term "force health insurance" I'm guessing you're not happy about the system you live under.
Because this system almost killed me/ruined my life. According to law I shouldn't have gotten the medicine. Although the actual active substance of the medicine is nothing special - it's in cake and other food. It's just prepared so that it gets through the stomach and small intestines. Normally it wouldn't reach the colon, where it needs to go. I couldn't work for over 1 1/2 years and then they even take it away from me and I had to do my own experiments, if the unofficial products work or not. And then it works and the medical insurance tells me that they won't pay for it, although I'm forced to pay those ***holes and they even tell me to get surgery (!). And only because I went to a lawyer, they finally gave up after months and months.
In theory the system would be fine. But some laws and the medical insurance company are that idiotic, that I couldn't believe it. Unapproved medicine is not allowed to be given out outside of studies - which even includes situations like mine, where I didn't have any other choice. Additionally there was a new law, which was actually meant for situations like that, but then the law says that the medicine MAY be given out, if there is a) an active study at that time (which wasn't the case, the last study was done just a few months before the producer stopped creating the medicine, but it also wasn't fully evaluated yet at that time) and b) the producer has to be responsible for everything and c) the producer has to PAY for everything - which is completely idiotic, because everyone is forced to pay for health insurance and the producer in that case only creates this new medicine, which means he can't afford to give it out to hundreds of patients for years. Even if he could, why should a medical company give out medicine for free. It doesn't make sense. Especially on the other hand they would pay 3000EUR+ Remicade every 2 months.
In my case even a system like in Africa would have been better, because I would at least have been allowed to get the official medicine in case I paid for it. Yes, people that couldn't afford it, would be in bad luck - but those are in bad luck here as well. No difference. In my case the whole situation was totally illegal and in theory the professor, that gave me the medicine, could have gotten sued (and would have gone to jail) for him saving my life. That's how crazy it is. Additionally I even paid for the official medicine, because noone paid for it but the study department of the clinic. Legally I wouldn't have been required to pay for it, but then noone was required to pay nor give it to me either.
But I assure you, it's far better than the American healthcare system. Here, were have a huge, gaping crack that millions of people fall into every time they get sick. Tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance try to cope with their illnesses by ignoring it or taking OTC meds.
I agree totally. In US you got all the approval crap as well, which in theory makes total sense. But in cases like this - where all the medicine against UC is working against symptoms and people know that - and the new medicine works against the cause - and noone gives a shit (for that new medicine the patent was granted over 10 years ago and it's still not approved - partly fault of the clinic, because they wanted to get it approved by themselves and overestimated the situation - they feared that medical companies could not be interested in getting it approved - it's too cheap and has actually no side effects besides flatulence - but then the patent was sold in 2009 and the medical company, that owns it now, works in slow-motion. I got told end of 2010 that it may be approved by now and they haven't even started study phase III, which means it will take till at least 2015).
If the active substance wouldn't be a food ingredient and there also wouldn't be any pharmacy that produces the unofficial medicine, I would have lost my colon by now or even more than that - not because there is no medicine, but because the official medicine is not approved yet and although I'm an adult that pays taxes and other crap, I'm not allowed to make that decision. That's why I'm really pissed about the system here. What's even worse is that there are many children that get their life ruined by the crappy disease and although there is a working medicine, they aren't given it and most of the time doctors don't even know about it - although everyone in this country pays for health insurance. Even liquid food is not paid by health insurance most of the time - even if it's confirmed to help in a case. It's intolerable.