What's Wrong with our Healthcare System

So I received a message from a really good friend of mine earlier this evening. Her mom is quite a bit older than my mom, is diabetic, and has some other chronic health problems. She's also one of the sweetest women I've ever met in my life and she'd give the shirt off her back to someone who needed it. My friend, her daughter, is much the same way.

The mom lives with her daughter and, as a result of her diabetes, has been battling major foot infections for the past year. She's had several toes amputated, but they finally think things are under control, as long as she has her bandages changed each day. Until today, they had been going to Community Care at the local hospital to have this done; today, the doctor gave them a prescription so that the daughter could do it at home. The thought was that it would be significantly faster (by nearly an hour and a half each day) and Medicare wouldn't be shelling out several hundred dollars a day to pay for a bandage change; they thought it was a good deal for everyone all of the way around. So, off they went to the pharmacy. Turns out that the medication is considered an over-the-counter medication (even though it has to be specially ordered and can only be ordered through a pharmacy) and costs a little more than $100 a tube. Medicare will not pay for a dime of the medication because it's considered OTC; they will, however, pay the entire charge for her to go to Community Care each day to have her dressing changed.

Can someone please explain to me the logic behind this reasoning? The government would rather make us, the taxpayers, shell out several thousand dollars over a month rather than pay for $100 tube of medication???!?!?! To me, something doesn't add up and I see NO logic here.

Now, I've seen some of the other reasons behind why healthcare costs so astronomically much (example: in the ER after a car wreck, I was charged $750 for ONE lortab; I filled a prescription for an entire bottle of them for less than $10), but this one just astounds me. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe Canada has the right idea with socialized health care.