I'm a nurse and this is a rant I'd love to join.

A few thoughts
1) Tell the nurses at your doctor's office, or the doctor, that you need sample packs. When the pharmaceutical representative comes to the office that handles the brand you need, the office staff can get sample packs from the rep. Sometimes sample packs are made but the office just doesn't have that particular medication on hand. If they know in advance that they have a patient who needs a specific drug, they can stop that particular pharm rep and request samples.

2) There is the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (pparx.org) which is a program that links patients to pharmaceutical assistance programs of the different drug manufacturers. This is good if you don't know which one makes the drug you use. If you do (look on the prescription bottle or ask the pharmacist) you can look on their individual Web sites. The programs are out there but it falls to individual patients to hunt them down.

3) In Illinois our Governor is making his state of the State address today and he is going to propose insurance coverage for everyone in the state that's uninsured or under-insured. It will be interesting to see how it would be paid for and what the Illinois legislature thinks of the idea. We already have it for young children. At the same time the Cook County Board (that's Chicago) is trying to cut back services in the county health system to cut costs. Those two things (state and county) seem to me to be at cross purposes so we will have to watch and find out what happens.