The Black Market

The formula black market. Yep, that’s right. It’s not something that’s talked about much, but it exists for many of us. Our state has a program for low to no income families that will provide formula at no cost. California has not made it mandatory for insurance companies to provide coverage for prescription formula, so of course, they don’t. I should correct that; our insurance company will cover Carter’s formula, but only if he’s tube fed.  So what options does that leave us? We are a single income family with 3 children, one of whom needs $800 a month in formula to survive.  We can’t buy this formula at the store. It has to come from a pharmacy or directly from the company. We also can’t afford to spend nearly 1000 every month for formula. So what have we done? We’ve bought it from the cheapest seller, which is usually off of E-bay. Where do they get it? I don’t know and I never asked.  We got one shipment from a seller on E-bay and all the cans were marked with a “Thank you for shopping at Kroger’s” sticker. I am sure that at $27 a can, this person did not just have 24 extra cans lying around.

I was also told that there are people who qualify for the formula assistance, request these special formulas and then re-sell them. Money straight in their pockets!! I never would have equated formula with illegal drugs, until I drove 3 hours to buy 10 cases of formula out of a woman’s garage. I paid $150 for 10 cases, which is less than the price of one case. And that’s not even the worst of it. The formula was expired. It was only a month expired, but I still fed it to my son. I fed my son expired formula because someone somewhere thinks my son needs to refuse to eat, drop drastically in weight and reach the point where inserting a tube into my child’s nose or directly into his stomach is the only way to keep him alive, before they agree to pay for his life-sustaining formula.

I do not understand the logic of it, or the fight that we are in now to try to get our supplemental insurance to reimburse us for the cost of Carter’s formula. And then I remind myself of how lucky we are to have insurance. We have found ways to keep our little boy thriving. We have pushed through. But this is not a short term battle. Carter will need this formula for years, and we will continue to trade in the formula black market.