Prescription drugs
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Started by metmike - June 12, 2019, 10:43 p.m.

My 31 year old son Quinn told me that the pharmacy messed up a prescription of his and didn't run it thru his insurance and the bill for a 30 day supply was $779.

And its a generic drug!


So when he runs it thru insurance and saves something like $750 the insurance pays the difference. Insurance company's are for profit businesses so guess how they get their money back?

Health insurance companys have to charge rates high enough to make money after they pay the stratospheric costs for drugs and medical care for their covered customers


Alot of  people and companies in the medical and pharmaceutical industry are making a ton of money. Lobbyists and others bribe our politicians and the FDA to keep them from forcing prices to come down. 

There is absolutely no justification to charge almost $30/pill for a medicine like this. I will bet it cost the company 10c or less/pill and they are charging 300 times that. 


Collapse of the health care system.........right in front of us!

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/28684/

Comments
By TimNew - June 13, 2019, 3:53 a.m.
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One of the thinnest books in the world is titled "Successes of government price controls".

By mcfarmer - June 13, 2019, 7:49 a.m.
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I’ve long held the belief we in the US are subsidizing the medical costs for much of the rest of the world.


Other places have various caps or controls on health care costs. The companies have to make their money so they charge here whatever they need to make their profit.


And of course the cost to make a pill isn’t really related to the cost they need to charge. Folks talk about recouping the R&D cost and that’s true, but they also need to fund what is happening to develop the next big thing.


Some of the horror stories about India and China manufacturing are very concerning. I have reached out to the companies who manufacture what few drugs I take and have found US sources for most everything.



“One of the thinnest books in the world is titled "Successes of government price controls".”


Thanks for the insight.

By TimNew - June 13, 2019, 8 a.m.
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“One of the thinnest books in the world is titled "Successes of government price controls".

Thanks for the insight.


Not sure what you are trying to convey here,  but if you'd like to discuss the historical effects of government price control,  I'd be happy to oblige. The most common effect is shortage.


By metmike - June 13, 2019, 11:15 p.m.
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I agree mcfarmer that the cost of the pill has nothing to do with the amount they charge and that the US is subsidizing cheaps drugs for other countries.


When my brother was in India, he said that all prescriptions were $2 there............with no insurance. Stuff that would be hundreds of dollars here. 

We pay that much here because they can get that much from us here. As long as they can get that much, they will.

They can try to justify it for reasons, X, Y and Z but it's a big part of the health care systems collapse.  This is a major crisis and the only way to stop it, is to stop letting them have so much money. Forget reasons X, Y and Z . They are worth far less to Americans than having affordible health care. 

Tim disagrees with this vehemently but the market place will not work like it does in most other realms here. The government is going to have to step in and take almost complete control. It will probably take the complete collapse, even worse than it is now or somebody like Bernie Sanders getting elected and his type of government but we just let the medical industry and drug companies get so far out of control that reigning them is a bit is not going to cut it.......especially since that has failed miserably because of graft, corruption, bribes, and lobbying. 

An open market does not work for health care and drugs. You can't shop around for the cheapest cardiologist after a heart attack or check to see what hospital has the cheapest MRI's or pick the best emergency room after you've been in a car accident. 

They don't have special's or sales for new patients at doctors offices or to get you to buy a new prescription drug.

Either you need the medicine or you don't and if you need it, you pay the price because, in many cases, there is too much to lose by not doing so..........like your life.

You can pass on the new Ipad or new car or new tv because its too expensive or wait for them to go on sale or buy at the store/company  with the lowest price but if you need medication, your doctor and your pharmacist are the gatekeepers. You can shop around at different pharmacies but you still MUST buy the medicine or suffer consequences to your health. This is where the drug companies have you trapped and take full advantage. You have to buy what they are selling.

If half the population decided to stop buying drugs because they are too expensive, the laws of supply and demand would force prices down. In the world of medicine and health care, the laws of supply and demand don't work because demand always stays elevated under all circumstances, so the suppliers can price gouge with impunity. 


Where is Ralph Nader when you need him (-:

Seriously, the problems causing this are well known and accepted by those that have the power to change things but nobody has the real solution. 

Obama care was NOT the solution. It got people more health care  which was a good thing but instead of affordable health care, it caused prices to go even higher.

It actually increased demand and reduced competition, which caused prices to go much higher. 



By TimNew - June 14, 2019, 4:05 a.m.
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5% of the treatment we receive in our lives will be emergency treatment.  So, 95% of the time, we have a chance to make an informed decision. The problem with the current system is that it's almost impossible to determine price. Most people have no idea what they are spending other than the cost of insurance and deductible/out of pocket. That's because we don't use insurance as insurance, but more as a prepaid service. I've spent a lot of time here outlining how to address that, and I suppose I  could do it again,  but ...

Needless to say, I am very skeptical about the results of having lobbyists and politicians deciding on what we'll pay. If you aren't skeptical, you haven't been paying attention. Government does not have a magic wand.

Prescription drugs are a simpler issue.

The first problem is that the FDA has created so many hoops and loops for drug companies to jump through that add millions to the cost of R&D.  Most of it useless. It ends up delaying the release of useful drugs and likely costs lives in the worst case.   The FDA should function more like Underwriters Laboratory. Is your drug FDA approved? Do you and your doctor care? In some/many cases, probably not.

2nd, Lobbyists for big pharma are working dilligently to restrict competition. They do it through patent laws and assorted regulations. It's an easy sell."We do it to ensure the highest possible safety and quality for our patients",  but that's a load of steaming refuse. They do it to protect the profits of their masters making it so expensive to produce drugs that smaller leaner companies can't possibly enter the picture.  And nothing controls cost better than competition. Nothing ever has.  Nothing ever will.