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If I go to the pharmacist and ask for omeprazole, they'll give me 30 pills at 40mg (total of 1200mg altogether) of omeprazole each. This costs me about 20 bucks out of pocket; or 190 without insurance which the drug company will see the 190 one way or the other
I can stop by a few aisles over and by the generic OTC omeprazole for 20 bucks.......42 caplets at 20mg each (so 840mg altogether)
the drug company will charge my insurer and I a total of 190 dollars for 1200mg, while if I buy it strictly over the counter they will receive 20 dollars for 840mg altogether
Someone EXPLAIN this elaborate BIGPHARM/BIGINSURANCE/BIGFINANCE scam to me. Why on earth is the drug company getting so much more money if I take the insurance route.
And if I ever stop taking these drugs, my GERD and heartburn will come back with an insane vengeance that will make me want to killself - far worse than anything I've ever experienced before taking these drugs. I've had a few days where I've tried to quit cold turkey. It is extremely painful, nauseating, and crippling. Why do these fiendish execs insist on only making you hooked on drugs which mask the symptoms rather than treat the cause? I can only imagine what ****** up things are happening to me long term by not letting my stomach produce acids
If I go to the pharmacist and ask for omeprazole, they'll give me 30 pills at 40mg (total of 1200mg altogether) of omeprazole each. This costs me about 20 bucks out of pocket; or 190 without insurance which the drug company will see the 190 one way or the other
I can stop by a few aisles over and by the generic OTC omeprazole for 20 bucks.......42 caplets at 20mg each (so 840mg altogether)
the drug company will charge my insurer and I a total of 190 dollars for 1200mg, while if I buy it strictly over the counter they will receive 20 dollars for 840mg altogether
Someone EXPLAIN this elaborate BIGPHARM/BIGINSURANCE/BIGFINANCE scam to me. Why on earth is the drug company getting so much more money if I take the insurance route.
And if I ever stop taking these drugs, my GERD and heartburn will come back with an insane vengeance that will make me want to killself - far worse than anything I've ever experienced before taking these drugs. I've had a few days where I've tried to quit cold turkey. It is extremely painful, nauseating, and crippling. Why do these fiendish execs insist on only making you hooked on drugs which mask the symptoms rather than treat the cause? I can only imagine what ****** up things are happening to me long term by not letting my stomach produce acids
I think you're missing the bigger picture. The real scam with the pharmaceutical industry, and indeed the whole medical insustry is that it doesn't want people to know many of the things that ail us are preventable by diet & exercise, including GERD.
Problem is, people don't like changing their behavior, and go out looking for "cures" as a result of making themselves sick because of unhealthy lifestyles.
Here is one story fom a guy who cured himself of GERD by eating REAL food:
In short, the real scam is that we think we need all these d*mn pills and surgeries when what we really needs is a lot cheaper and easier----to eat truly nutritious food and to exercise.
It's the difference between being the company that undertook all of the research and development costs, testing, clinical trials, and then marketing of the drug they created for a limited time opportunity to be the exclusive manufacturer of it ... vs somebody else who comes along and is now able to simply manufacture the product because the formula is now in the public domain.
The initial research and development may have taken millions (as in hundreds of millions ...) to discover the product. Along the way, they may have tried many formulations that didn't yield good results, or may have pursued a formulation that looked promising at first, but then didn't make it all the way through the process to a viable product ... all monies spent without yielding a benefit. The sum total is that a new drug into the marketplace can cost thousands of millions of dollars to bring to the market, and that's got to be paid for somehow.
Then there's still the risk of an unknown issue developing once the product is in the marketplace. You've seen this happen with a wonderful product, such as Thalidomide ... worked great through all the trials but had a very bad side effect for pregnant women, discovered only after the product had been in the marketplace for awhile .... which cost the company a lot of money in damage claims. You see how big a business this has become when you're seeing the ads on TV by law firms trolling for injured client claims for many medical or pharmaceutical products. Again, the developing company has to set aside reserves and insurance to offset these risks ... and enough money to develop other products if they're going to stay in business after the original patent runs out on their new drug.
All of this process requires trained specialists who aren't inexpensive help, and even the trials phase takes millions of dollars. Add in the risks of the capital venture, and those people need to be rewarded for their efforts, too. In sum, it's a very expensive process to bring a successful product to market ... and those folks aren't going to work for free.
Put this in perspective: What do you do for a living? Do you expect to get paid for your work product? Do you invest in any market? Do you expect to get a return on your investment?
Do you think that those folks in the pharmaceutical business should work for any less?
Oh, BTW ... the drug companies don't get all the money as you illustrate in your purchase scenario from insurance companies. They are compensated according to an agreed upon payment schedule for a given drug by the insurance company. I've watched my FIL, who had a small town pharmacy ... actually be paid less money for certain drugs than the drug companies charged him for the item because the payment schedule was determined by the purchasing power of the big pharmacy chains who bought in bulk and had big discounts compared to a stand-alone little drugstore. If you paid your deductible and that little pharmacy collected the agreed upon payment from the insurance company, the little drugstore actually lost money on making that sale to you ... which is why you see so many non-drug higher profit margin items in a small drugstore. They need to have you stop for point of purchase items in their store, so even greeting cards are a big profit center to them.
To give you a further idea as to the costs of retailing drugs at a pharmacy ... every one of them must have an on-duty registered pharmacist to even have their door open. The licensing laws require that a pharmacist be on duty for all their published store open hours, too. Take into account that means if a pharmacist is going to take a break, or stop for lunch, or head down the hall for any reason ... either a second pharmacist must be on duty or the pharmacy store must close it's doors. I know a number of pharmacists that do 8 to 10 hour shifts without being able to leave their post at the counter. These are degreed people, and the pay rate for many is around $100/hour ... even your local big box pharmacy store typically pays $75/hour + benefits. The pay is high because the knowledge and need to work to 100% performance level for each and every dispensed prescription is there due to liability issues. This overhead continues whether the pharmacy is selling higher profit margin drugs or low profit margin drugs ... or possibly nothing at all for some hours of the day. Do you work under those conditions at your line of work?
If I go to the pharmacist and ask for omeprazole, they'll give me 30 pills at 40mg (total of 1200mg altogether) of omeprazole each. This costs me about 20 bucks out of pocket; or 190 without insurance which the drug company will see the 190 one way or the other
I can stop by a few aisles over and by the generic OTC omeprazole for 20 bucks.......42 caplets at 20mg each (so 840mg altogether)
the drug company will charge my insurer and I a total of 190 dollars for 1200mg, while if I buy it strictly over the counter they will receive 20 dollars for 840mg altogether
Someone EXPLAIN this elaborate BIGPHARM/BIGINSURANCE/BIGFINANCE scam to me. Why on earth is the drug company getting so much more money if I take the insurance route.
And if I ever stop taking these drugs, my GERD and heartburn will come back with an insane vengeance that will make me want to killself - far worse than anything I've ever experienced before taking these drugs. I've had a few days where I've tried to quit cold turkey. It is extremely painful, nauseating, and crippling. Why do these fiendish execs insist on only making you hooked on drugs which mask the symptoms rather than treat the cause? I can only imagine what ****** up things are happening to me long term by not letting my stomach produce acids
Actually, no. The drug company will just get the $20 or less. Insurance companies NEVER EVER EVER pay retail. They love to have doctors and drug companies inflate the retail prices, because it instills a fear "OMG! What would I do if I didn't have insurance???" and makes people continue to pay for insurance.
NEVER fall for the lies that we have a capitalist system of economics in this country. We have a managed (even micro-managed) economy.
And yes, drug companies have turned into companies that want to get people hooked on drugs. Just say no.
If I go to the pharmacist and ask for omeprazole, they'll give me 30 pills at 40mg (total of 1200mg altogether) of omeprazole each. This costs me about 20 bucks out of pocket; or 190 without insurance which the drug company will see the 190 one way or the other
I can stop by a few aisles over and by the generic OTC omeprazole for 20 bucks.......42 caplets at 20mg each (so 840mg altogether)
the drug company will charge my insurer and I a total of 190 dollars for 1200mg, while if I buy it strictly over the counter they will receive 20 dollars for 840mg altogether
Someone EXPLAIN this elaborate BIGPHARM/BIGINSURANCE/BIGFINANCE scam to me. Why on earth is the drug company getting so much more money if I take the insurance route.
And if I ever stop taking these drugs, my GERD and heartburn will come back with an insane vengeance that will make me want to killself - far worse than anything I've ever experienced before taking these drugs. I've had a few days where I've tried to quit cold turkey. It is extremely painful, nauseating, and crippling. Why do these fiendish execs insist on only making you hooked on drugs which mask the symptoms rather than treat the cause? I can only imagine what ****** up things are happening to me long term by not letting my stomach produce acids
They are able to do this because of people like the diabetic guy my sister has to treat at her clinic.
The guy avoided diet and exercise to the point where when faced with changing his habits or losing his legs....well, he's about 30 inches shorter now.
People want a little blue pill to fix the fact that if it were 100 years ago they'd have already died from the abuse they'd inflicted on their body.
P.S. Generics are cheaper because their copyright has passed. The newest drugs are more expensive as they have to recoup development costs right away because after 5 or 7 years etc. anybody can come along and make it.
It's the difference between being the company that undertook all of the research and development costs, testing, clinical trials, and then marketing of the drug they created for a limited time opportunity to be the exclusive manufacturer of it ... vs somebody else who comes along and is now able to simply manufacture the product because the formula is now in the public domain.
But the thing is: The version of omeprazone that is provided by the pharmacist, the one that supposedly costs $190 in total from both the insurance and the consumer, that isn't normally the brand name drug either. It's a generic. So the company that that undertook all those costs still isn't getting the money.
The rule most insurance companies follow is that if a generic exists, that's what must be dispensed, unless the doctor specifically says otherwise.
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