Question For You $mart People
Community
Once a year I see my cardiologist. I just went to see him Monday for my annual confirmation that I'm still alive. One of the meds I take for my cholesterol is a generic simvistatin. A 90 day supply only costs me $30 at Walgreens, where I have one of their rewards cards. He wanted to tweak it a bit and change it to a different one, again a generic. Well now.......Walgreens wanted $250.00 for the same 90 day supply!!! That's $1000 a year and an EIGHT HUNDRED PERCENT INCREASE! So I called him and told him to forget it. Then he called me back and told me that the Meijer Store's pharmacy department would give me the exact same pills, for 1 year, FOR FREE! Yes, FREE. ZERO!
Now, here's my question. I have a pretty good idea of how a free market works, having my own business for 40 years. I understand competition, service, supply and demand and the ups and downs that come with it. But this??? It makes no sense at all. What am I missing? I'll bet the government has something to do with this (they could screw up sunrise and sunset if they got control of it), but that's just a guess. I DON'T GET IT! What do you think???
They are buying market share. People that take that statins on avg. end up taking a bunch more high profit drugs.
Screw ‘em all with diet and exercise. :-)
I can see a difference of 10, 20, even 30 percent. But FREE???? NOTHING is "free". Somewhere, somehow, someone had to pay to manufacture them. Who's getting screwed here?
I do that Joey, but I also have something called genetics that I have to deal with! If I didn't do the diet and exercise stuff I'd be dead already. Only ONE male on my mother's side (and she was one of 7 kids) made it much past 50.
Well, I’d like to blame genetics, as mom and dad were pretty dang smart folk......so I have to go with, I just didn’t try hard enough.
:-)
I'm in the same boat WW.... exercise......exercise......exercise..... fish oil..... Metamucil.... garlic..... cherios...... fake meat about 70% of the time... boca burgers.... etc..... still my cholesterol was off the charts.... my doctor changed my cholesterol meds 3 times and my last blood draw was 165. Mine is a generic too,, Atorvastatin 40MG. Now I need him to adjust my meds to address my sugar. I'm 51. I was adopted so I know nothing about my biological parents other than a hand written note from when I was an infant that said my biological mother had an enlarged heart. Oh,,,, And I'm certain that my beer drinking doesn't help my numbers....... ha !!! But that is my vice.....
I can take or leave the beer. But good ice cream???? OMG!!!
Jtv, that scares the piss out of me. :-)
You got it Kevin, but the question remains......FREE? I know they may not pay much, but a business cannot survive on "free". And how does Walgreens think they can charge $250 for something that people can go literally a half mile down the road and get for nothing?
I learned my economics via sweat, hard work and getting my tail kicked by my competitors. I guess I missed that lesson about free!
DL, how about dinner and drinks first? :-)
57
Too young for me, haha. I was going great until I had 10 surgeries in three years in my early 60s. 9 of those were related to knee replacement and staph infections. Every hospital stay was 3 more pounds on me. With that BP pills and cholesterol meds. Used to be able to run weight off. Now I don't dare run because I've been warned another surgery could result in loosing my leg above my knee. Genetics plays a big part in so many issues like cholesterol, BP and heart issues. I had s friend that lived into his mid 90s. He lived pork and chocolate. He was a meat and potatoes man. Now all his kids are in the 80s and two are still working. The longer we live the more issues that spring up. Wait until you have your bladder scoped(twice) or biopsies taken on your prostate. Both of those are reeeeaaallllyyyy invasive. Imagine a pencil being inserted up your wang or what feels like a baseball bat being shoved up your poop chute. Then a 16D nail goes out through your colon into your prostate and rips out a chunk for a biopsy. 12 biopsies to be exact. Ah yes, the golden years. That's where all the gold you have saved gets spent on Drs, dentists and drugs. Oh yeah last year I paid out $5,000 on a bridge and crown and so did my wife. There went a dandy hunting trip.
I have been a diabetic since I was 30 and I am now 75. Have been taking four shots of insulin a day all those years. I used to pay $12 for a vial of insulin. Now it is $200 a vial. I go in the donut hole pretty quickly and it comes out of my pocket. A lot of people use the pen but there is only about a third amount of insulin in the pen and it cost more so I still use a hypodermic needle. My grand parents lived into their 90's and my dad died two months short of 98 and mom was just short of being 97. I want to die in my sleep like my grand father, not screaming like the passengers in his car.
Did you buy anything else when you were at Meijer? I would postulate that their train of thought is that once in the store, you are going to buy other things. Especially when they (in your mind) just saved you $250.
Are you sure it's not a *one time* free 90 day trial?
Either way, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and go get your meds.
Matt
Plenty of examples of why single payer healthcare would 1) keep big pharma in check and 2) keep you guys healthy without breaking your budget. Looks like you guys made a great argument.
Oh bullshit. If the government touches it it's toast. They do it EVERY time. And how are we supposed to know that Commie Care will save us money? Because the government and it's socialist ass kissers SAY it will? We already tried that and it was TOTAL lies. So stop lying about it. You Commies are great at one thing.......lying.
A commie finally telling the truth!
I get that Kev, but how does Walgreens justify charging $250.00 for the same thing? Or are there enough people stupid enough to pay it even though they know they can get it free?
I need customers like that!!!
WW, just ask your cardio doc why the difference.
Let us know what he says.
That's crazy, but I've seen stuff like that too with appliance parts. I guess as the world gets smaller the laws of regional supply and demand go out the window too.
And Walgreens was charging that for the generic lipitor. I get my freebie today. I will stop by Walgreens and tell them. I'll be interesting to hear what they have to say.
Why change? Ask the doctor if he benefits from one over the other.
"Well, show Meijer your gratitude and buy something else along with your prescription."
I did. I also take 81 mg aspirin everyday, and Meijer had a two bottle pack that would supply me for TWO YEARS for $9.99.
And my Dr wanted to change the meds because he'd like to see my blood pressure go down a tad.
I've had a couple Drs load me up with free samples after telling them that meds they were prescribing were costing way more than I could afford. I've had CVS where I go ask if they could change brands by calling my dr that would save me several hundred for a 90 day supply. Be happy you're not using cancer drugs. Prices in some of that is beyond belief.
A few weeks ago my oldest son got sick . The doctor gave us a prescription for some meds and as we were leaving he handed me a coupon that said that the customer will pay no more than 15 bucks for the medicine. It was a coupon from the pharma co. Got to Krogers and the clerk rang it up at 600 dollars for 30 pills. Wife looked at me and I said is that with the insurance. Clerk said no and rang it up with the insurance included and it came to 190 dollars. I said I thought that coupon said no more than 15 dollars, she said, oh, you have the coupon? Give me the number. We did and got it for 15 dollars. Great for us but that sucks for someone needing the meds and not having the "golden" coupon. It's ridiculous what they charge for some of this stuff.
$600 to $30??? That makes absolutely no sense at all. I guess the laws of economics don't apply to the drug industry.
"$600 to $30??? That makes absolutely no sense at all. I guess the laws of economics don't apply to the drug industry."
The sad part is, the drug industry is probably making decent money even at $30.
Just another example of our broken health care system. But what's the answer? Regulate drug prices? I doubt anyone here would advocate that.
Matt
It's free because you should not be taking it. Also, it could be a loss leader of sorts because cholesterol is used to repair the body and make hormones (which regulate the health of the body) so, if you take a cholesterol lowering med, you're bound to create, exacerbate or reveal other chronic issues that will pay much bigger dollars.
Your body manufactures about 3000mg of cholesterol a day so "high cholesterol" is generally not the problem. Again, cholesterol is used to repair the body. Whatever underlying problem you have that is elevating cholesterol is, however, a chronic problem.
That's my health and jaded market analysis. More likely, the drug rep just gave Meijer's a deal to open up future revenue streams.
The drug company isn't just getting the $30, they are getting what they bill the insurance company for also.
It's all a game really. If people actually knew what was being paid for some items, or if the money came directly out of their pocket, my guess is that a good chunk wouldn't choose to buy them. That in fact IS what happened for many years.
Just like at a buffet, when people load up their plates and don't eat all or much of it, and definitely don't need it. "I paid for it." So to is the medical industry. "I've got the insurance, and I paid for it (maybe), so why not?". Supply and demand can work, but right now it just isn't supply and demand.
"The drug company isn't just getting the $30, they are getting what they bill the insurance company for also."
Not in my case. I don't have any insurance that covers meds. That's why I shop.
