In 2008, a dose of Narcan cost Hicks about $14.50. It cost $78 now. Albuterol, used to treat asthma, shot up 3,400 percent. Saline bags used to cost $5.95. Now they were $22. A drug for cardiac arrhythmias that was first marketed more than fifty years ago and should cost only a dollar or two inexplicably rose to $180 a vial. Hicks waited two years to get morphine after companies stopped making the generic version. When he finally did get some, it cost $12 for a 1 cc vial. He used to buy twenty-five of them for $43.
