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Cutting Health Care Costs by Legalizing Marijuana.
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Location: Blogs CII InfoBlog |
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| Posted by: larryc |
8/11/2009 1:10 PM |
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Thirteen states have legalized the selling of marijuana for medicinal purposes while other states are taking this legalization into consideration. Advocates continue to pursue legalizing the drug noting that it is a more cost-effective measure than the high price of pharmaceuticals for treating certain medical ailments. While the future of our health care system remains in limbo, employers are looking for the most cost-effective way for their employees to be able to treat their medical conditions. In an article posted by Workforce Magazine, “The effort to legalize the sale of medical marijuana has focused mainly on whether the medical effectiveness of the drug justifies making it legal to obtain in plant form. The medical benefits have been most closely tied to treating weight loss, nausea, pain, inflammation, spasticity and other symptoms associated with cancer, AIDS, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and arthritis.”
Though recent legislation has shown some victories in the area of legalization, employers are still unable to reimburse patients who used marijuana for medical purposes. The article went on to note, “Stephen DeAngelo, chief executive of Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland, CA, has tried to provide a medical marijuana benefit through the health plan he provides to his 67 full-time employees with out success. Instead, he provides his employees, all of whom are medical marijuana patients, with a free gram of marijuana for every shift they work, a policy he says has lowered his company’s health insurance costs. Many of these patients had drug bills of several hundred dollars a week before they began using medical marijuana. Now they are about $40 or $50 a week.”
Should we not have the right to utilize any measure that may be most effective in treating medical conditions? Pharmaceutical companies have no qualms in releasing medications to treat pain such as Oxy-Contin that can have just as many side effects and is also a highly addictive drug. I believe we have the right to not only provide the most effective measures of treatment to patients but also give them the opportunity to treat their ailments in a more cost-effective manner. It is hard enough to survive day to day during the current recession; most patients can barely afford medications even after insurance companies have paid a portion of the coverage. It is the least our government could do to help those who do not have a six figure or more salary to treat their medical ailments.
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