[Uncle Rico]

Went to the pharmacy to pickup a ion for "Emend" for my wife to take just before surgery to prevent nausea after the surgery.

Total with Px insurance was $50 for a single pill. It's important, but come on now.

[Jason Rubacky]

That's nuts but I've seen worse....

My mom suffers scleroderma and a few other things and has a pill that NO JOKE is $5000 a pill!!! (before insurance)

I'll ask her the name of it the next time I talk to her... but wouldn't that suck to be the pill that you drop down the drain!

[Uncle Rico]

And it's only $10 copay for a whole bottle of Vicodin.

[Jason Rubacky]

Originally Posted by SeymourButts

And it's only $10 copay for a whole bottle of Vicodin.

isn't our health care system great! #sarcasm

[bibby]

That's absolutely crazy.

[meadowmufn]

Originally Posted by Jason Rubacky

isn't our health care system great! #sarcasm

Speaking as someone who has unfortunately had to use our health system quite frequently due to chronic illnesses, YES IT IS!

My doctors and nurses have been awesome and my health insurance company has been excellent, despite a few bumps (and $10 pills) along the way.

I'm sorry that pill is so expensive, but most anti-nausea meds are. In the urgent care 2 weeks ago, the lady in the bed next to me needed one and it was $70 per pill. It worked quickly though and she raved about it.

[RemodelingGuy]

Costs me over $800 a month to keep my ticker and blood pressure under control...

SUCKS!

[meadowmufn]

Originally Posted by RemodelingGuy

Costs me over $800 a month to keep my ticker and blood pressure under control...

SUCKS!

I spend a couple hundred a month on ions. When I first started working full time, I was paying upwards of $700 a month just in insurance premiums. Fortunately, that's not the case now.

The cost sucks to be sure, but being healthy enough to go places and do things is priceless when the alternative is being bed ridden. I've been there.

[loxly]

Yup... the cost of meds is outta control, asthma meds are right up there in cost with heart meds... no generics available.

But like Meadowmfn said: We need to be able to be healthy, so we pay what we have to. The best news is that once the "chronic" part is over (for *some* things) we can try lifestyle changes to address the underlying causes. Some things require ongoing meds, but we can try and reduce the amount of those meds by understanding what got us to need them in the first place.

Unfortunately SeymoreButts you are at the beginning of a cycle that is going to be expensive. But it will be well worth it in the end....

[markwelch]

Several years ago, I changed health insurance and was surprised to find that I was being charged a $15 or $20 co-pay (I can't recall which) for my thyroid medication, which previously cost less than $10. It turned out that my new insurance company insisted that I pay the full co-pay even if the medication had a lower price (and oddly enough, the drug store got to keep it all). But if I told the drug store to re-run the ion without any insurance -- and since I wasn't using insurance, I also wasn't limited to just a 30-day supply, and I got a better price by getting a 90-day supply.

About 20 years ago, a doctor prescribed an ointment, which I dutifully bought (at a cost of $80 for a tiny tube). It helped, but when I ran out I switched to the non-ion form of the same ointment, which was less than $10 for a much larger tube. When I mentioned this to my doctor on my next visit, he apologized -- he said he never would have prescribed it if he knew how much it cost, but would have recommended that I just buy the OTC version and slather more of it on.

[MichaelColey]

We always let our doctors know that our insurance doesn't cover prescriptions and that we would prefer generics or cheaper options if they'll work. They're understanding and perfectly willing to work with us. Instead of a $160 antibiotic (which is how much one that one of the kids was prescribed once), Amoxicillin (under $5) usually works just as well.

[meadowmufn]

Originally Posted by MichaelColey

We always let our doctors know that our insurance doesn't cover ions and that we would prefer generics or cheaper options if they'll work. They're understanding and perfectly willing to work with us. Instead of a $160 antibiotic (which is how much one that one of the kids was prescribed once), Amoxicillin (under $5) usually works just as well.

My doctor usually writes ions that allows generic substitution and our pharmacy usually fills with generics to save us money. However, with one specific ion, I insist on the brand name. I do fine on generics for most drugs, but generics for this specific drug have given me trouble over the years. I need the consistency of getting the drug from the same company instead of possibly getting it from a different company every time with varying quality. Fortunately, the drug isn't very expensive and my doctor writes a ion for no generic substitutions.

My husband has a similar problem. He was recently forced onto a generic by our new ion insurance provider and the brand name ($300/mo. without insurance, $30 with) worked much better for him. He's doing ok, but not as good as he'd like to be, so he and his doctor are going to have to file an appeal with the insurance provider to get the brand name. It's an inconvenience, but you do what you have to do.

[JudiMoore]

you do what you have to do

I remember a period of time when our ions were set up so we paid and then got reimbursed. Dave was being discharged from the hospital and I stopped at the drugstore to pick up the scripts they hand you when they wheel you out the door.

The total was $1200 and there was $400 more that was out of stock until the next day. I was so overwhemingly grateful that I was able to gulp, whip out a charge card and then rant and rage about it later. I can still remember discussing it at the time - "What if we didn't have this good job and great insurance?" That was back in the late 90's I think, but a big portion of the order was asthma and heart meds.

[BlogBonnieBlog]

Originally Posted by SeymourButts

Total with Px insurance was $50 for a single pill. It's important, but come on now.

That's outrageous! Make sure you get some premium water thought to wash it down and make a party out of it.

[Rexanne]

There is so much that I am passionate about discussed in this thread that I'm just gonna say two things and move on or I'll offend people I care about.

The price of that pill is INSANE. That ANY pill can cost that much is just absolute insanity.

I also won't make this a "political" rant but come on! NO pill comes anywhere CLOSE to that cost to manufacture, market and still reap a reasonable profit. For this alone, we need health care reform. I would much rather not have the government in our health business AT ALL but this kind of craziness is where I see the benefit of regulating these crooks. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Out of here before I get revved.

[meadowmufn]

Originally Posted by Rexanne

NO pill comes anywhere CLOSE to that cost to manufacture, market and still reap a reasonable profit.

I don't think it's the manufacturing that costs so much. I think it's the R&D and all the government hoops they have jump through to get the drug to market that costs so much. I once read somewhere, I forget where, that a new drug costs on average $800 million to develop and get on the market.

[ladidah]

Rexanne I am with you. Something has to be done.

The prices are insane! Thanks to someone in office our Cobra gets extended for another 6 months, but after that we will have to pay our own health insurance.

Jason, I can not believe the $5000 price tag for just ONE pill!
Oh My Goodness gracious. I would wear the pill around my neck as my *bling*
I bet it must be made with Unicorn horns or something.

Seymour, good luck with the surgery. When is it?

[AffiliateHound]

As Rexanne said, there is only so much that can be discussed here, but a couple of things do need mentioning in light of all of the above.

Yes, as meadowmufn said, R&D is a big factor in drug pricing, but so are the following:

1) I am sure I have discussed this here before, but a major part of big Pharma costs that are passed on in drug pricing are the - believe it or not legal - payoffs made to government officials. Big Pharma has virtually every key governmental researcher and bureaucrat in the FDA, NIH and CDC on their payrolls as "consultants". If you remember a few years ago there was a scandal when it was revealed that all the key people at NIH were being paid by Big Pharma for "outside" work. The Director of the NIH was fired over this, and new guidelines were established. The new guidelines said that this blatant conflict of interest was legal, so long as the proper disclosure forms were filed out.

2) One of the key elements in drug pricing is what the federal government pays for drugs through Medicare. Well, in 2003 Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was passed by Congress, and a huge part of that was the prohibition on Medicare negotiating price breaks on drugs (it also prohibited the importing of drugs from Canada). Medicare from then on had to pay whatever prices were set by the drug companies.

Congressman Peter DeFazio, one of the leading opponents of the bill at the time, estimated that over the first eight years of the prohibition, the prohibition would result in an increased cost of ion drugs in the sum of $139 Billion.

The Act also provided that the federal government could not process ion drug claims under Medicare, but that every Medicare recipient had to purchase ion drug coverage from an insurance company.

All of these factors > $50+ pills.

[Rexanne]

Hound,

I wouldn't know which part of the above to *re-quote* - all of it!

meadowmufn, my niece works in drug R&D in Switzerland and tried to bend me about how much R&D *should* be subsidized, etc. I called bullsh!t then and I still call bullsh!t.

There are natural remedies that cost pennies per dose that are buried because big Pharma can't make a profit from them. And the govmt. is currently trying to restrict information and availability of *alternate* remedies to further the greed of those involved.

It's nasty business. The worse black hat parasite you ever lost a sale to. :-)

[MichaelColey]

Moderator Note: I'll let the discussion continue since it's in a semi-private forum and has been civil, but let's make sure to keep it respectful. There are people with very strong opinions on both sides of this (and most political discussions).

[RemodelingGuy]

Originally Posted by MichaelColey

Moderator Note: I'll let the discussion continue since it's in a semi-private forum and has been civil, but let's make sure to keep it respectful. There are people with very strong opinions on both sides of this (and most political discussions).

You're such a weenie sometimes....

[MichaelColey]

Better watch it - I have the power to change User Titles, dork.