Some Medicare patients have been suffering as a result.
Sue Lee, 80, of Crestwood, Ky., had been taking Humira for years to prevent painful sores caused by a chronic skin condition known as psoriasis. Her employer’s insurance plan had helped keep her annual payments to $60. Then she retired. Under Medicare rules, she would have to pay about $8,000 a year, which she could not afford.
“I cried a long time,” she said.
For months, Ms. Lee stopped taking any medication. The sores “came back with a vengeance,” she said. She joined a clinical trial to temporarily get access to another medication. Now she is relying on free samples of another drug provided by her doctor. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if that supply runs out.
Barb Teron, a book buyer in Brook Park, Ohio, plans to delay her retirement because she is worried about Humira’s cost. Ms. Teron, who takes Humira for Crohn’s disease and colitis, has never had to pay more than $5 for a refill of the drug because her employer’s insurance plan picks up most of the tab. The cost, according to a pharmacy app on Ms. Teron’s phone, was $88,766 in the past year.
Ms. Teron, who turns 64 in March, would have liked to retire next year, but that would have meant relying on Medicare. She fears that her out-of-pocket costs will spiral higher. “When I look at that $88,000 charge for a year, there’s no way,” Ms. Teron said.
AbbVie executives have acknowledged that Medicare patients often pay much more than privately insured people, but they said the blame lay with Medicare. In 2021 testimony to a congressional committee investigating drug prices, AbbVie’s chief executive, Richard Gonzalez, said the average Medicare patient had to pay $5,800 out of pocket annually. (AbbVie declined to provide updated figures.) He said AbbVie provided the drug for virtually nothing to nearly 40 percent of Medicare patients.
The drug’s high price is also taxing employers.
Soon after she started taking Humira, Melissa Andersen, an occupational therapist from Camdenton, Mo., got a call from a human resources representative at her company. The company directly covers its employees’ health claims, rather than paying premiums to an insurer. Her Humira was costing the company well over $70,000 a year — more than Ms. Andersen’s salary.
