Since I've been out of work, I enrolled in Walgreens "discount prescription" program, or whatever they call it. I picked up 3 prescriptions, 2 for me, 1 for the wife. The enrollment for 1 year is 35.00 for the family plan. The one time cost of 35.00 for the year plus 3 prescriptions was 75.00 bucks, so the 3 prescriptions were 40.00 for a 90 day supply of each one. Im paying LESS now than I was when I was employed full time with Medical Mutual as my health ins. and Express Scripts as my pill provider Our pills are cheaper this way instead of paying monthly for "coverage" thru an employer. Tell yah what, being unemployed this summer sure has opened my eyes to how much insurance rips a guy off. My/our life ins. policy's are cheaper now than when I was working. What I found odd was American Fidelity who was "handling" the policies thru my work, NEVER told me to just deal with Texas life (who holds the policies) from here on out, being I was out of work now. When I called Texas Life to get the run down on policy numbers and such and monthly cost to me, I asked "What about American Fidelity?" They replied "Nevermind them now, deal directly with us" I asked about monthly PAPER statements, they replied "Absolutely can do" Had I NOT inquired, I'd still be paying thru American Fidelity along WITH a fee If a guy doesnt inquire, or ask questions, a guy can spend WAY more than he has too. Nobody looks out for you EXCEPT you! Anything else is a sales pitch! I'll be back to work for a few more years, then retire or something, but I've learned a lot tho! Im tired of hearing about life planning..... Work till 65, retire, live on your 401k, Roth, or investments, play golf, travel, do fun stuff. Heck I just need to get back to work first, the rest aint gonna happen LOLOLOL, Im playing by ear from here on out
Oh boy, a can of worms here guys. We're paying (wasting) as a country about ⅔ of what we spend on Healthcare (the "industry") and to a large extent we get lousy health care (what we actually want/need). We've been presented m/l with a false dichotomy between status quo vs Single-Payer but there's a much better way to do this w/o going to a government run/administered system. Stay tuned...
Goodrx works great. Ordered some meds from Costco. They gave me the bill, but I said what about goodrx which I printed. They went back and redid it. Pills went from like $4 each to $1 each. You can go online and put in what you are looking for and it gives all the pharmacies in the are and what they will give it to you for. Then you pick the cheapest one.
When the free market is able to work its magic, the consumer benefits at every level, as there are incentives for companies to compete, innovate and improve quality and pricing. When it's not... Well, the results are pretty apparent.
The few places where we do have a free market in Healthcare in the US work incredibly well - Namely elective surgery (Lasik, breast implants, etc.). The Single-Payer advocates like to point to the failure of our "free-market" healthcare system which is anything but... A true free-market system w/actual insurance (what we have is not insurance), transparent pricing and consumers spending their own $ would make the government run/administered systems that we're supposed to emulate because of their "efficiency" look downright inefficient. I could write a book on all this. Oh, wait...
THATS what gets me They know they charge way too much, and most dont know about "programs" or "memberships" that reduce the cost dramatically. Who is charging "too much" tho??? Walgreens charged me 35.00 for a year membership, so Walgreens just made 35.00 off of me so they could charge me less for prescriptions?? Is that to offset the profit loss on the pills? OOOOR, the pill companies saying " you can sell it cheaper if you want, BUT, only if the consumer asks! Even at 1.00 a pill its probably still 50% profit Who exactly is "charging too much" Or is it cumulative? To me its like going into a grocery store, you have a cart full of stuff, cashier says " 287.50 is your total" you reply " heres 65.00 bucks, take it or leave it" cashier says " thats fine" I'd be thinking " Geez, just lower the price" Is there a fee for that?
Having a family member with Type 1 diabetes really opened my eyes to the price gouging. The price of insulin in the USA is insane along with some of the other durable supplies needed.
Since I am retired from Windsor Police, I have so many benefits for life. Greenshield picks up the tab for most drugs, dental work, etc. I am so fortunate. I must say that your drugs are SO expensive. I guess profit drives the cost.
Not exactly although the pharmaceutical industry is quite profitable - Much more so than say "big oil." It's a bit too complicated to go into here w/o writing a book but the PBM's (Pharmacy Benefit Managers) and each insurance company's formularies (what they do/do not cover) have a lot to do with the high costs. We also bar Medicare/Medicaid from negotiating prices (insanity) and in a way we supplement what other countries pay for Prescription drugs. Also, many other countries that do have government run systems do not offer the full gamut of what is available here because of the cost so we may have a lifesaving drug here that another country has determined (i.e. rationing) is not worth the cost to save the lives of their inhabitants. Whether it is worth it or or not is up for debate (much of our Healthcare costs are spent on end-of-life care) but we do tend to offer whatever is available.
I don't disagree with the above. The best figures that I could come up with were that 13 to 17% of an average person's lifetime medical expenses are spent during the last year of life in the USA. Item two - The woman of the house that we bought our present home from has MS. It is well-controlled by a drug that costs $5,000 per month in the USA and is not covered by her insurance. The family was not poverty-stricken, but $60 grand per year for one drug is not within the budget of just about anyone who makes anything approaching a normal salary. The couple found a way to order it by mail from Canada for $1,200 per month; still pricey, but at least possible.
Exactly as I said, we bar Medicare from negotiating prices and thus in effect we subsidize those costs for other countries who do negotiate. In the end, the drug companies average the profit for that particular drug and make out well because of what they're able to charge us in the US. Sans Medicare/Medicaid, the PBM's, along with the GPO's (Group Purchasing Organizations for medical supplies) are middle men who add nothing but cost and are legally exempt from paying kickbacks to manufacturers. This is why all of our medical supply manufacturing (& some drug manufacturing) went to China and is the problem w/bringing it back. There's no free market when the PBM's & GPO's can pay kickbacks to manufacturers that put smaller manufacturers at a disadvantage and ultimately puts them out of business. The big manufacturers, knowing that they can effectively have a monopoly, can then charge more knowing that the products can no longer be imported. It's akin to what happens when steel prices go up as a result of tariffs. Here's a good website that explains all this much better than I can if anyone is interested in a deeper dive into this government sanctioned scheme: https://www.physiciansagainstdrugshortages.com/
Canada does have gov control pricing on most drugs. However, a drug manufactured in the U.S., shipped to Canada and then resold back to an American can be seized by your customs as not approved yet was made in the U.S. Go figure!
Probably made for export only, but regardless, if government or companies think they can make a few bucks they’ll charge for it
That is true. The interesting thing is that the couple that I mentioned in a previous post did their research and found that the Canadian drug is manufactured in the same factory as the American drug. We all know that Canada is a third-world Banana republic that is incapable of maintaining proper cleanliness and quality procedures.
