In his youth, Billy Grantham worked on rigs in the East Texas oil patch. But ever since a car crash left him blind and disabled, Grantham, 52, has survived on a government payment of less than $1,000 a month. To cope with post-accident trauma, he has relied on a tranquilizer called lorazepam, sold under the brand name Ativan.
One day last May came Grantham's prescription for poverty. He was making his monthly phone call to Heartland, an Omaha, Neb., mail-order pharmacy, when a salesman informed him that the price of lorazepam had jumped from $11 to $85 for a month's supply...
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