Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Is ANYONE looking out for us?



This doesn't pass my smell test:  I just saw a piece on the news about the skyrocketing cost of generic drugs.  Remember how we used to jump at the chance to buy a quality generic drug instead of the high-priced name brands?  Those days are apparently fading fast.

Once the manufacturer's protected patent period (20 years?) expired, then the formula was open for other drug makers who could make and sell the same thing for a fraction as much.  (The protected period was meant to give the original maker the opportunity to recover their R&D costs.)  As long as you bought from a legitimate pharmacy and stayed away from the dubious mail order stuff made in Bangladesh or somewhere similar, it was a great deal for consumers. 

Now I hear that the price of generics is skyrocketing.  One pharmacist interviewed gave as an example one antibiotic that she said she has been buying for years for $40-$50 for a bottle of 500 that now costs her $2,195.  That's more than DOUBLE TRIPLE too damn much!

I have no idea what's going on, but I smell a rat.  Are there no honest businesses left who can deliver a good product / perform a good service at a FAIR price?  Is Screwing The Public the new hot major at university business schools? 

S


10 comments:

  1. I just purchased 30 antibiotics pills. After insurance they cost $4.00 so I'm not sure the consumer is being hit by this yet. Sure sounds like collusion, but I would think there is a lot of money to be made by undercutting those inflated prices.

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  2. If there is money to be made, I don't think we the consumer have an good advocate but only ourselves.

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  3. Another reason for people to have health insurance. Does Wal-Mart still charge $4 for most generics? Other places driving up the price would play right into their hands and then Wal-Mart will own the pharmaceutical industry.

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  4. Comparison shop is the answer.

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  5. Ugh. Makes me want to ignore my blood pressure altogether. But then I couldn't read stories like this anymore!

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  6. I recently went to the doctor to get a cortisone shot in my arm. Twenty bucks for the shot but I was also charged $200. for surgery. I called and said I never had surgery, just a shot. I was told a shot is now considered surgery. Thank God I have good insurance.

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  7. We just changed our health insurance at the first of the year. It is much cheaper though we now have a co-pay (minor) at the doctor's office. The good news is we now get all our prescriptions from the insurance company and none of them cost us a dime.

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  8. I don't think this has anything to do with "Hope and Change" but much more with the greed of the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S.. About ten years ago, we kept reading stories about people from Buffalo and other areas near Canada where buses would take groups of senior citizens over the border to a Canadian pharmacy where drugs were typically 1/3 to 1/4 of the U.S. prices. People would take their prescriptions and pay for it out of pocket, since it was the only way they could afford their medicine. I remember at one point then-President Bush mentioned something about this being a "bad practice" - not being safe.

    Must be it was much safer to pay exorbitant U.S. prices for medicine that was imported from China.

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