The Curse of a Restless Leg.

I have the common, but maddening affliction known as “Restless Leg Syndrome.” 

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When it’s acting up, I have an irresistible urge to move one of my legs, usually the left one.  As soon as I move my leg, the compulsion stops, but only for a minute or two. Then it happens again. And again.  And again.

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Finally, after 15 or 20 minutes of this, it does stop. But, perhaps an hour later, it will start up again. 

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I don’t have that sensation during the day when I’m moving around, but it can occur when I’m working at the computer or just watching television, which is very distracting. And of course it’s worse when an episode occurs after I go to bed because it’s impossible to sleep.

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There is, however, a medication—pramipexole dihydrochloride—that suppresses the urge to move my leg and it lasts for 24 hours. That’s really good news. 

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The bad news? A 30-day supply of this medication costs one thousand dollars.

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Fortunately, we have a great medical plan that includes coverage for prescription drugs, so my out-of-pocket cost for a month’s supply of this medication is just $20.

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But it does cause me to wonder what someone without this kind of insurance would do. I’m very much afraid most people would simply have to do without this medication. The mere thought of that is enough to start my leg twitching!

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And that’s a why it’s such an outrage that there is a federal law forbidding Medicare from negotiating with the giant pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices.

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How in the world does a member of Congress justify a vote in favor of that legislation? The answer, of course, is they don’t . . . because they can’t. 

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If a bright, young first-term congressman were to promote legislation allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices, “Big Pharma” would recruit an opponent for the next election, a Political Action Committee would be created, anonymous contributions would pour into the PAC, and from there into an opponent’s campaign. And the next election would end the political career of one more promising, well-intentioned and capable politician.

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Once we get passed this damn coronavirus, there’s an election coming up. It’ll take time and effort and money, but some serious house cleaning needs to be done.

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NOTE: For reasons no one has yet been able to figure out, the WordPress program I use to create this blog was not providing a space between paragraphs, making one solid block of text that’s difficult to read. My solution is makeshift, but I’m inserting a dot after each paragraph until someone at WordPress can solve the problem.