Medical insurance is becoming more and more difficult to obtain. If you are trying to cover yourself and your family, premiums are extremely expensive, sometimes eating up at least a week’s worth of wages. The conditions that are not benefits or are minimally covered benefits are becoming more numerous while the conditions that are considered essential coverage by a large portion of people are becoming scarce. In addition, a great number of people simply cannot pay the required premiums since they have increased so dramatically, so those people are exposed to health situations that require expensive treatment.

The latest, on the long list of deleted services are medications for migraine headaches. In the past, migraines were traditionally treated with the pain killers, muscle relaxants and sedatives usually used for other conditions. Focus was on the symptoms and not the cause.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, medicines requiring a physician’s permission were created to specifically target migraine relief. These medications were prescribed by themselves or in conjunction with pain or other medicines. Now, in the current day and age, many prescriptions designed expressly for severe headaches have been created, and can be obtained by patients all over the United States and the world. N/A Unfortunately, these kinds of migraine prescriptions also tend to be extremely expensive, and are either only minimally paid for or completely excluded by many medical insurance plans.

Medications developed specifically for migraines, and meant to be taken with every migraine, are often doled out in amounts of 8 to 12 pills monthly. This leaves the patient with the task of determining which migraines they can medicate and which they must suffer through to conserve medication. Insurance will not pay for early refills and so the patient must pay the lion’s share of the exorbitant cost. Even when a patient is up to date on their insurance premium payments, they often can not make use of that insurance to purchase the medications they really need. Migraine headaches can signal other health conditions. They have been linked to stroke. Are there other options for those who cannot afford the cost of medication?

For people in that position, like a friend of mine who isn’t able to afford insurance, there’s the possibility of Medicaid. Medicaid is available providing you are willing to wade through all the paperwork, can meet the income limitations, are able to find a way of getting approval, and then you’ll have coverage for help on costs of prescriptions and seeing a doctor. If you make it through the initial requirements, you still have to stay alert because you could lose your coverage in a heartbeat for not calling Medicaid on something or not sending in a correct form or paperwork.

It’s really sad that we now have medications that have been developed, are needed, and plentiful, yet we have insurance companies are creating difficult to impossible situations for people to have access to vitally needed medications. So the question now is whether people suffering with migraines become the current victim of insurance cutbacks, or is there going to be an option for migraine sufferers to have the coverage needed to receive the medication required? Questions like these, and more, are now before the new Congress for consideration. Hopefully these answers and more with be forthcoming in the near future.

Get details on the different Types of Migraine Headaches and to Learn Insurance and Migraine Options, Visit the Migraine Headache Guide at Migraines-Headaches.org.