Watch out for your prescription drug costs rising

[Bill Mattocks]

I don't know what the root cause of this is, but last month when I picked up my monthly prescription for Metformin (for my Diabetes), I noticed that my cost after insurance had risen $5. That's $60 per year out of my pocket. My employer has not changed my health care benefits, so I was not sure what was going on. I just re-ordered my prescription for this money, and I'm shocked to find it has now gone up $13.19, or a total of $158.28 per year. Folks, this may not sound like a lot, but it's not something we budgeted for and I just don't have the cash. We'll come up with it, we're not that tight on the budget, but this is just not a good thing at all. My wife also has to take some prescription drugs, some of which are quite expensive. If they go up a similar percentage, we'll be shelling out more than $2,000 per year on prescription drugs out-of-pocket that we previously were not paying.

I don't know if this is due to some provision in the ObamaCare health bill or not, but it's not a good thing. Just be warned.

 

[granfire]

Considering that many of the same drugs (exact same drugs) are available across the border (pretty much any border...) for much less than in the US, I am sure that the people with an agenda will point toward the White House with blame. I am thinking it's the people who hold the strings (and who are responsible for real drug shortages...like heparin etc....oodles of medications that clinics can't even get their hands on anymore!)

I am sure we will be hit with the same increase. We never had a problem needing medications until last year when my husband developed a blood clod, now he has a handful of things he has to take every day....thankfully we have wiggle room in the budget, but that is certainly a crapy situation to be in. It's not like you can replace your medication with sugar pills to safe cost.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Considering that many of the same drugs (exact same drugs) are available across the border (pretty much any border...) for much less than in the US, I am sure that the people with an agenda will point toward the White House with blame. I am thinking it's the people who hold the strings (and who are responsible for real drug shortages...like heparin etc....oodles of medications that clinics can't even get their hands on anymore!)

I am sure we will be hit with the same increase. We never had a problem needing medications until last year when my husband developed a blood clod, now he has a handful of things he has to take every day....thankfully we have wiggle room in the budget, but that is certainly a crapy situation to be in. It's not like you can replace your medication with sugar pills to safe cost.

I am already not testing as often as I should, because the testing equipment is not covered at all and it costs more than the drugs. Every single time I test my blood sugar, it costs me a dollar. Testing twice per day, every day (as I am supposed to) costs $730 per year. I can't afford that. Period.

 

[granfire]

I am already not testing as often as I should, because the testing equipment is not covered at all and it costs more than the drugs. Every single time I test my blood sugar, it costs me a dollar. Testing twice per day, every day (as I am supposed to) costs $730 per year. I can't afford that. Period.

aren't you glad the healthcare system in the US is so good?!
</sarcasm>

Suck big time, man!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I believe the reason Canadian drugs are cheaper is their taxes subsidize things deeper. I may be mistaken.

Due to the current state of the economy, fuel costs being worked in at multiple levels, and changes in the health law, I expect those costs to continue to rise. My BP meds aren't available in a generic yet. One formulation should be in November, but the one I'm on will be another year at least. It lists for almost $300 a month, though I wonder what the 'dont have insurance' rate is.

Personally, it tears me. The part of me that wants things affordable vs the part that says 'free market, hands off', y'know?

 

[granfire]

I believe the reason Canadian drugs are cheaper is their taxes subsidize things deeper. I may be mistaken.

Due to the current state of the economy, fuel costs being worked in at multiple levels, and changes in the health law, I expect those costs to continue to rise. My BP meds aren't available in a generic yet. One formulation should be in November, but the one I'm on will be another year at least. It lists for almost $300 a month, though I wonder what the 'dont have insurance' rate is.

Personally, it tears me. The part of me that wants things affordable vs the part that says 'free market, hands off', y'know?

There is no free market in pharmaceuticles. They have the monopoly and keep an iron grip on it.

There is that excuse that the companies have so much invested in research, but seriously, why on earth does the US have prescription drugs advertisement in general publications, aimed at non medically trained individuals?! Aside from aspiring and similar over the counter remedies, other countries have long done away with that!

There are also rumors about the FDA pulling permits for natural remedies after the big companies have tested and isolated the well know remedy and market it now at a 1000% markup - or more!
As much as the pharma companies profit from Uncle Sam...the prices should not be so high!

 

[Empty Hands]

There are also rumors about the FDA pulling permits for natural remedies after the big companies have tested and isolated the well know remedy and market it now at a 1000% markup - or more!

There are no permits for natural remedies, herbs, homeopathy, supplements, and the like. They are not regulated by the FDA. If you look on the side of the bottle of most of these remedies, you will see a disclaimer stating that the product has not been evaluated by the FDA. You can even see it on popular stuff like the advertisements for Airborne or Extenze (WTF Jimmy Johnson?!?).

 

[granfire]

There are no permits for natural remedies, herbs, homeopathy, supplements, and the like. They are not regulated by the FDA. If you look on the side of the bottle of most of these remedies, you will see a disclaimer stating that the product has not been evaluated by the FDA. You can even see it on popular stuff like the advertisements for Airborne or Extenze (WTF Jimmy Johnson?!?).

I know I phrased it wrong. but you get the drift: What was cheap before becomes expensive (and the cheap version discouraged) once big pharma gets their paws on it....

 

[WC_lun]

It is a combination of things. The drug prices go up an the insurance companies are marking up the out of pocket for consumers. Insurance companies are supposed to notify a person before they do this, but I have been noticing price increases without the notification. I don't think the new healthcare reform bill has much if anything to do with it.

 

[billc]

One of the reasons drugs are cheap in Canada is they just make the pills. The research and development costs are done by the American companies. Far cheaper to make pills than to do the work and create them from scratch.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv24n1/graham.pdf

Marginal Cost Versus Total Cost An increasing number of goods and services in the &#8220;New Economy&#8221; are based on intellectu- al property. Much of the total cost of producing such products is incurred before they are packaged and sold; they are incurred in research and development, and are sunk before the man- ufacturer receives any revenue.The costs of research are joint costs; that is, they cannot be rationally attributed to specific units of output. However, con- sumers worldwide must share these costs for the market to be viable. In this type of industrial environment, manufacturing and distribution costs are a relatively minor proportion of total costs, but manufactur- ers must levy prices such that they can recover the sunk research and develop- ment costs as well. To do so, manufactur- ers will charge different prices to different consumers. When segmenting markets by country, they often use measures of nation- al income to set prices. This means that wealthier countries will pay more.

 

[WC_lun]

Nonsense. The same companies that make the pills for Canada make them for the US. They are just marked up higher for US distribution.

 

[billc]

From Economist Dr. Walter E. Williams...

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/03/destruction.html

Once a drug is produced, the cost of an additional pill is very low. The real cost of a new drug lies in developing it and getting it through Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) regulatory hurdles. FDA hurdles cost drug companies an average of $800 million per drug and then, according to a Tufts University study, only three in 10 drugs produce sales sufficient to allow the companies to recoup their development and FDA approval costs. Then there's a class of drugs known as "orphan drugs" that don't make it to the market. These are drugs effective in the treatment of a rare disease but coupled with FDA approval costs and their expected sales make them a losing economic proposition for the drug companies.

also...

http://gregdahlmann.com/stories/why_are_canadian_prescription_drugs_so_cheap.shtml

The biggest costs come from research and development and marketing. Actually producing a pill is relatively inexpensive. So, drug companies are able to sell at relatively low prices and still make a profit... as long as they&#8217;re covering the rest of their costs somewhere else... usually the United States.

That set-up breaks down when U-S consumers start buying prescription drugs at Canadian prices. David Webster heads up a health industry consulting group in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He says the pharmaceutical companies didn&#8217;t really pay much attention when small numbers of Americans first started buying drugs from Canada. But now, Webster says drug firms are concerned about their 200-billion dollar main market.

{DW: evaporate} :13
&#8220;The pharmaceutical industry will not let that kind of revenue &#8211; and they&#8217;re investors I might add &#8211; will not stand by while that kind of revenue evaporates.&#8221;

A handful of drug companies have already responded by cutting back on supplies to the Canadian market. David Webster says if this trend continues, it could lead to the drug companies deciding to offer their products at just one price... the higher U-S one. And if Canada won&#8217;t buy them for that much... it won&#8217;t get the drugs.

also...

One area where Canada and the U-S are on equal pricing terms is generic prescription drugs. Generics aren&#8217;t subject to price regulation in Canada... so they&#8217;re sold at whatever price the market sets. In fact... generic drugs often sell for less in the United States.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

My Metformin is generic. That stuff has been out of patent for decades. So this raising of the price is not due to Big Pharma doing anything nefarious, unless every single producer of Metformin is doing it together, which I doubt. This is something else causing the end-user (meaning me) cost increase. I would like to know what it is.