Flying High Prices

So my husband and I are both on meds. Sucks, but that's life, right? I take a little pill each and every evening so that I may continue to breath. Kind of necessary, but also very expensive - even with insurance. My husband is on heart medication - again, one of those terribly necessary things. It's not like there's a pharmacy on the island, either. We have to order from Brooks or McQuade's (we're McQuade's kind of people) and New England Airlines flies the prescriptions over - provided there is a flight scheduled.

Now, NEA has been doing this prescription service for many years. For quite some time they did it out of the goodness of their hearts. There was no freight charge, no fee of any kind, even the service of calling folks to let them know their prescriptions had arrived. And, like so many things, folks took advantage of that so that when NEA felt it necessary to levy a freight charge on the prescriptions, there was very little guilt or remorse (I imagine). And having a basic knowledge of the workings of the airline, I feel that, what with fuel and maintenance costs and all, it's not untoward to charge a small amount for delivering prescriptions. But here's the thing - I just picked up my husband's rx yesterday and paid a four dollar freight charge. Four dollars! For one small package that was with a whole bunch of other small packages brought over on a flight that was coming over anyway. This cost is not covered by insurance, nor is it reimbursed by insurance. This cost is a flat out fee of four dollars every time you have a prescription brought over on a scheduled flight. Interestingly enough, the Rxs aren't brought over automatically on the 5:00 (or 5:30 or whatever it is) unless there are passengers scheduled. So even if the pharmacy hauled ass to get your husband's heart medicine to you so he wouldn't have to go without (his own fault, granted, for not refilling sooner), there's no guarantee that he'd get it when expecting it. Then the scrips come over on the first flight in the a.m. I realize that the planning is up to me...but folks, there's a reason that pharmacies are open six or seven days a week. It's because sometimes people forget, or mistakes are made and the wrong Rx is filled or someone at the front desk forgot to fill it altogether, etc. And I also realize that four bucks ain't nothing compared to the fifteen going across on the boat, picking it up in Westerly and coming back the same day (fifteen bucks and...what...four hours?). But I don't understand why the freight charge on scrips went up when they only come over on pre-existing flights anyway. It's not like it's paying for extra fuel consumed on prescription flights. It's not even like that extra pound, maybe two, is gonna consume more fuel on the flight. Or maybe I'm just a dinosaur who believes that there's a definite difference between can and should and my kind are seriously in danger of becoming extinct.

Speaking of which, I still have to make that four hour turn around tomorrow because I just found out the cost of a package of diapers in the only store that carries them!

Hasta la...whatever.