how the drug companies screw us

[JonB]

within the last month my laborador developed what the vet thought to be a skin infection which caused the skin on her back to flake and itch. he prescribes an antibiotic which costs 17 dollars for 40 pills. three days ago my grandma fell and hit her head on a candleholder. it left a gash which ended up not healing so we took her to the ER today for stitches and the doc prescribes for her the same antibiotics my dog is taking except this time we paid 30 dollars for 40 pills. the bottle they come in is the same, the name on the pill is the same, and the dosage is the same.


so the next time you dont feel well consider going to a vet instead of a normal doctor because its gonna be a hell of alot cheaper :sign:

 

[AVB]

Humm, treat your Grandmother like a dog or the dog like a member of the family :0 :0

 

[cvmfour]

That's how they make their money.

:0 @ AVB picture!

 

[kingpin]

I have had it happen the other way around as well. My vet gave me a prescrition for my dog to be filled at the drug store because it was cheaper there.

Like the new pic. AVB

 

[gibu]

Kramer on Seinfeld discovered this long ago but there were side effects. He began acting like a dog and even developed a huge aversion to going to see the vet. So be careful with this new knowlege. :thumbs:

 

[camaroon4me]

within the last month my laborador developed what the vet thought to be a skin infection which caused the skin on her back to flake and itch. he prescribes an antibiotic which costs 17 dollars for 40 pills. three days ago my grandma fell and hit her head on a candleholder. it left a gash which ended up not healing so we took her to the ER today for stitches and the doc prescribes for her the same antibiotics my dog is taking except this time we paid 30 dollars for 40 pills. the bottle they come in is the same, the name on the pill is the same, and the dosage is the same.


so the next time you dont feel well consider going to a vet instead of a normal doctor because its gonna be a hell of alot cheaper  :sign:

Hi Jon. Very sorry to hear about your grandmother, I hope that she gets well soon.

Not trying to stir the pot, but if it was the same prescription....why didn't you just use the ones you already had on hand, or am I over-simplifying the issue?

Not to defend the drug companies, but most of the profits are made by the pharmacies. These local places like Walgreens etc.....pay very low rates for the drugs, and turn around and mark them up by DRASTIC preportions. Drugs that cost them pennies, they sell for a buck a pop or more! It was documented on one of those investigative reporting shows late last year. I was really amazed! I think they do it because so many people with insurance really don't care what the cost is, they just have a co-pay and the rest is covered! No wonder the rates keep rising every year!

I would suggest trying Costco next time. It was on this same program that Costco was shown to have the least markup on their prescription medications, and you do not have to be a member to use their services.

John V.

 

[wam79]

The profits made off of medicine in America is huge. Thats why the pharmacutical companies/industry lobby so hard to keep us from getting medicine from Canada
Of course we are told it is to "protect"us from getting bad drugs. Like Canada's the third world or something...

Bill

 

[gibu]

Canada just has a third world military is all. They save all that money from the defense budget they don't need because they have such a great neihbor and instead spend it on other stuff.

Your welcome.

Only geography and the good graces of it's neibors keeps Canada from being Bangledeshes bitch. :0

:sign: :sign: :sign: :sign: :sign: :sign: :sign: :sign: :sign:

 

[JonB]

Not trying to stir the pot, but if it was the same prescription....why didn't you just use the ones you already had on hand, or am I over-simplifying the issue?

we didnt know they were the same until we got home and put the new pills in the same cabinet as the dogs pills.

 

[emodx]

The drug companies do make a profit, but the Pharmacies are the ones ripping people off. The drug companies have to have money for R&D, experiments, advertising, and most of, money for insureance and liability. R&D eats up a huge amount of their income. I pay nothing for my medication, and very very little for my family's copay because I am Military. If I was not Military, I would be broke paying for health care and meds. Come to think about it, I am broke now.

Emo

 

[camaroon4me]

You have to know the pharmacies are making a killing. At least here in Metro Detroit, they are scrambling to see who can have the most stores. Between Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid, it is a cat fight here. Everytime dirt is moved on a major intersection, you could have a safe bet that one of these three are building another store. Just a big joke!

They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't making millions on it. If the government really wants to do something meaningful about health care, they should start here with prescription drugs. They should make it a law that the pharmacy must notify you of the total cost of the prescription, and it should only be a certain percentage above the co-pay. The insurance companies should work with the insureds to get them to try to find the best locations to purchase their drugs, or go to a mail order system when available.

I am aware of the implications of cost controls in a free market, but in this particular market, consumers do not have a real choice. The pharmacies have a monopoly on drugs. Consumers cannot just go buy their meds without a prescription, and are succeptable to gouging by these pharmacies, who just charge the balance to the insurance companies.

 

[texasaggie]

You've got that right, here in Houston, Eckerd's and Walgreens took up every corner, and it seems like they're adding new corners for the newcomer, CVS, who probably has at least 2-3 hundred stores in the last year. When there's more places to buy drugs than there is to rent movies, something's wrong, haha.
my 2 cents

 

[camaroon4me]

You've got that right, here in Houston, Eckerd's and Walgreens took up every corner, and it seems like they're adding new corners for the newcomer, CVS, who probably has at least 2-3 hundred stores in the last year. When there's more places to buy drugs than there is to rent movies, something's wrong, haha.
my 2 cents

And you know what really sucks about it, they are all building brand new stores, and a year or two from now, one of them will have bought out the others, and they will have shuttered up stores all around town! They cannot all keep up the pace, when you factor in Walmart, Kmart, and all of the local variety food stores with pharmacies, they cannot all survive.
I think if I was an investor, I would be pulling my hair out with all of the money going into building new stores. We literally have the same stores within walking distance of each other. There are more drug stores than convenience stores!

 

[ejquin]

The average time from when a drug is conceived until a company actually starts making money on it is from 10-15 years. R&D costs are anywhere from $500 million to billions. Most of the money coming from the products we buy are used to fund research for new products. Most companies also offer breaks in price for people who truly can't afford their medications. And then there's the pharmacy markup issue everyone has been talking about.

Not to defend pharma companies, but I work for one so...

 

[Horse]

By the time it (new drug) reaches the US market though, I really think they've already recovered their R&D costs through other countries though...you know, the ones that don't spend years approving the stuff.

 

[JonB]

You've got that right, here in Houston, Eckerd's and Walgreens took up every corner, and it seems like they're adding new corners for the newcomer, CVS, who probably has at least 2-3 hundred stores in the last year. When there's more places to buy drugs than there is to rent movies, something's wrong, haha.
my 2 cents

And you know what really sucks about it, they are all building brand new stores, and a year or two from now, one of them will have bought out the others, and they will have shuttered up stores all around town! They cannot all keep up the pace, when you factor in Walmart, Kmart, and all of the local variety food stores with pharmacies, they cannot all survive.
I think if I was an investor, I would be pulling my hair out with all of the money going into building new stores. We literally have the same stores within walking distance of each other. There are more drug stores than convenience stores!

its worse than starbucks!!!

 

[Maggs44]

You have to know the pharmacies are making a killing. At least here in Metro Detroit, they are scrambling to see who can have the most stores. Between Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid, it is a cat fight here. Everytime dirt is moved on a major intersection, you could have a safe bet that one of these three are building another store. Just a big joke!

They wouldn't be doing it if they weren't making millions on it.

Well, either ALL the pharmacies (walgreens, wal mart, drugstore.com etc) are in cohoots and keeping prices artificially high (which I highly doubt) or the drug companys are selling their drugs to the pharmacies at a high price.

Knowing that most high priced drugs are the ones where the drug company still has copyright to that drug (no generic available) and thus no competition, it is much more likely that drug companys are responsible.

This is very evident when the drug companys lose their exclusive rights to drugs and other companys can make a generic... prices drop like crazy!

Did you know that drug companys spend more on marketing than R& D? And that some CEO's of drug companys make up to 74 million?

Merck and Co. sales $40,363, net profit 17%, Market/admin 15%, Research 6%
Pfizer Inc. Sales 29,574, Net profit 13%, market/admin 39%, research 15%

Sales in Millions
http://www.actupny.org/reports/drugcosts.html

 

[camaroon4me]

This is all great information, but the fact still remains that if people were paying the real costs out of their pocket instead of the insurance companies, there is no way that most people could afford them, and the prices would drop due to differed market conditions. I am not suggesting this of course, people would die, but something has to be changed.

I would like to see the profits from the drug store chains. They are the ones who are making out on this, I'm telling you. It's true that CEO's make a lot of money. They make most of their money in stock options. It's an incentive for them to keep the companies profitable. I can't find a lot of fault with this technique, because if they weren't making the money for their stockholders, they wouldn't make what they do. The net profits shown on the charts provided do not seem that out of line to me. One had a net profit of 24%, which is pretty darn decent, but other than that one it wasn't out of line in my opinion. When you consider that they have to defend themselves from lawsuits out the ying-yang, some frivilous, some not.

I like the point that was made about the costs of r/d being recouped on foreign countries. It is true that it seems to take a miracle for any potential life saving drug to make it to market here. There are drugs that probably could have saved many lives here, but they take YEARS to get to the American market, but are used in other countries successfully. Why can't people in this country who are dying anyway, be allowed to try experimental treatments that are being used elsewhere?

Sorry for the rant, Im going back to cigars now before we get a flame going on this one! :sign: :sign:

 

[Lumberg]

The profits made off of medicine in America is huge. Thats why the pharmacutical companies/industry lobby so hard to keep us from getting medicine from Canada
Of course we are told it is to "protect"us from getting bad drugs. Like Canada's the third world or something...

Bill

It's also funny how just as certain drugs become availabel OTC or generic, a "new, improved" one comes out.

Witness Clarinex. Notice how it came out just as Claritin became OTC? When you ingest Claritin enzymes in your body convert it to the active ingredient of Claritin. Thus the effects are exactly the same. But they market it as the next great thing.

 

[El_Malo_de_Cali]

Kramer on Seinfeld discovered this long ago but there were side effects. He began acting like a dog and even developed a huge aversion to going to see the vet. So be careful with this new knowlege. :thumbs:

I thought of this and remember seeing it too. Kramer takes the dog cough medicine and starts acting like a dog and chasing Newman the postman. Elaine gets blacklisted by the American Medical Association and every single doctor in New York and ends up going to a vet for her rash. That was so funny.!