I'm Anti-Prescription Meds

I hate prescription meds, especially if your doctor tells you have to have this certain kind, certain one. The pharmacies you'd buy it from can cost over 100$ to 200$ to 300$ for 100 tablets. The truth is, they get that, for maybe 10$, usually less. There is a certain med that the pharmacies get ovevr 300,000% profit from. PROFIT. Not money, but PROFIT. Meaning it goes into their pocket. There were a lot of meds. I'll have my mom give it and I'll copy the email onto here, but for now I'm just going on what she showed me. They make so much money from you buying prescription meds. So if you think 1$ is cheap, it's what it should be for 100 tablets.

EDIT

This is for the U.S. because it's business owners are very greedy.

crazy4fun56 wrote:This is for the U.S. because it's business owners are very greedy.

Actually, this is standard in the world, because price elasticity of demand is extremely low for medication.

It is further compounded by intellectual property laws which prop-up government enforced temporary monopolies on certain drugs.

Yes, true true. But U.S. companies are greedier than any other country, I know that for sure. Haha. But, Canada gives free health care, so these drugs are free, and other countries offer it for cheap prices or free as well.

Prescriptions are free for everybody where I live. Nobody pays for meds at all.

Canada gives free meds and health care and so do other countries. It can also depend on situation. But this is a problem - especially because some doctors put you on it just for the money... *sighs* I've seen that happen. The person was just as fine without meds and apparently the doctors got a portion of the profit that they prescribed. I think those were like cases of pharmacies in the doctor's office or hospital. Some countries give free health care and like I said, it depends on the situation. I don't know if it's statewide or nationwidely handled. So it might depend on the state too, but I'm not sure.

In the US, only the elderly and some children are covered by government provided insurance. Extremely poor people and some with disabilities also can qualify. Everyone else relies on private insurance or goes without. Socialized medicine brings its own benefits and problems. Medical care is an extremely complex system and the US has not come up with a "good" answer for making sure that everyone is covered while not bankrupting the country.

As far as pharmaceutical companies, they are businesses and are always interested in the bottom line. New drugs take years to develop and millions of dollars in research and testing. Therefore the companies must recoup their costs during the period when the drug is proprietary (non-generic). Generic drugs do not bring much revenue to the pharmaceutical companies and some drugs are even produced at a breakeven or loss.

Consider antibiotics, for example. Infection-causing germs have become resistant to current antibiotics because new antibiotics have not been produced in so long. The abundance of generic anitibiotics, has diminished their profitability, so companies have put research dollars into products that have a larger profit potential. If you were in the hospital and became infected with a fleshing eating bacteria, I am sure you would be willing to pay whatever the price was to save your life. Unfortunately, it takes many years and dollars to develop a new strain of antibiotics.

The companies also have to pay out exorbitant settlements in lawsuits brought by patients who sometimes bring about their own medical problems.

Yes some drug companies sometimes make huge profits and have a "close" relationship with doctors. But a doctor is ethically prohibited from profiting from any drug he prescribes and even the "perks" that pharmaceutical companies give doctors (dinners, conferences) are now under FDA scrutiny.

Many people like to point out the flaws in the American medical system but it is the best in the world. This is coming from the mother of an adult child that currently cannot get a heart transplant because she has no insurance. I wish there was a better answer, but I don't know what it is.

N.

I'm not talking about the government. I'm definately not talking about them. It's the pharmacies that don't research it that make so much money, like Walgreens and $#%^. Once it's proven to work, they buy it, but as far as I know they don't research it themselves. The government and other places do that. I'm talking about pharmacies like Walgreens and other places that give prescription medicine. They're the ones screwing it up, not the government. Those owners are screwing it up. It's like you owning a pharmacy yourself. You get the prescription medicine from a generic company which sells it to you for 11 cents for 100 tablets. So you go out and sell it for 136$ not because it cost a lot or not because the government told you to, but because you want to make money. And lots of it.

I'm pretty sure this is happening with the pharmacies not because they research it, but because they want money. I should get the exact email soon. I'll give it to you guys. I was remembering this, so it might not be exactly what it said, but we'll find out what really is going on without it soon hopefully.

EDIT

Got it!

WalMart announced it is starting a new policy where all generic drugs will be sold for $4.00 per prescription.





COSTCO! read this...

Let's hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman tha t signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington , DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much pr ofit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America

The data below speaks for itself.

Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $ 0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%



Claritin: 1 0 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%




Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%



Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%




Norvasc: 10 mg Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%




Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%



Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%




Prilosec : 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%




Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%




Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%




Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%



Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%


Zestril:< /I> 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809



Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%



Zocor: /B 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%



Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%




Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit , did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!


At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.


I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.



I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.


I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in (this is true)


I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

Sharon L. Davis
Budget Analyst
U.S Department of Commerce
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458
Office Fax: 202-482-5480
E-mail Address: sdavis@doc.gov

Obviously I recalled it wrong. But it's still ridiculous.

I see what you are saying, now. I did misunderstand your original post.

Unforunately it is difficult to be a informed consumer when it comes to buying drugs. The only option is to call around and find out what different pharmacies charge for specific meds if you have to pay for them out of pocket.

The analysis of the different brand name drugs broken down by active ingredients is interesting but I wonder where they came up with the "consumer price"? As the report that you cited later points out, there can be vast differences between the wholesale price charged by the pharmaceutical company and the retail price established by each pharmacy.

N.

does anyone know what bad comes of overdosing on risperdal?

Derek

i mean i know you can die and it does bad damage to your liver and your head feels all pounded, but what else?