10 prescriptions to go before they're free - the countdown is on!

Went into the local chemist to get my new gout pills earlier today, and at the same time handed them my Centrelink DSP card with David's name on it, as we are an official defacto couple in Australia and have all the same rights as straights (except marriage of course). Asked the counter lady at the prescription counter to get the pharmacist to check on where David and I are with the safety net threshold. As a couple both our prescriptions combine to meet the threshold.

I thought it was still 52 prescriptions a calendar year, but somewhere along the line the unrepresentative swill in Canberra has increased that to 60 prescriptions per year. Apparently we're paying off the national debt a prescription at a time.

It doesn't include our HIV meds as now they're free anyway. But as it's two monthly prescriptions even before when they weren't we didn't actually get it together to get the receipts for them to take to our local chemist, thereby contributing to the prescription count. Our bad. 

So anyway the lady came back with the pills after a bit and announced we were up to 50 precriptions this calendar year, and had ten to go before reaching the free ones. That was more than I thought actually, and I was a bit pissed off that if they'd not increased the bloody thing in Canberra we'd only have had two to go before they were free.

In any case the count is on! Starting at ten more today. Every one we get now at that chemist will go into the count.