Drug prices - enough to make you sick and broke

You already know I think pharmaceuticals are dangerous. But they're not just dangerous to our health - they're also dangerous to our financial situations.

One email I received recently suggested that health care - especially surgical procedures and prescription drugs, are behind the economic crisis we're facing today. They simply drain too much money from too many people.

The following prescription drug prices are excerpted from an e-mail I received today - and they're enough to make you say "That must be a typo!"

I'm a firm believer in free enterprise and in businesses making a profit. They take a risk by running a business, and deserve to reap some rewards. But these mark-ups are just a bit over the top!

Do note that these prices reflect the cost of the active ingredients. The drug companies do have to pay to put those ingredients into a pill, bottle it, add a label - and of course, to print the insert containing the very fine print that tells you possible side effects and drug interactions. And then, the pharmacy that sells them to you has to make a profit - they do take a financial risk by buying the drugs and making them available when you want them.

But still - these profits seem a bit obscene.

If these were products with a low demand rate you might say that the retailer has to make more profit on each item because volume is low. But at the rate that doctors write prescriptions, we know that these pills are sold in high volumes!

Here are a few of the costs vs. selling prices:

Claritin 10 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 Percent markup: 30,306%

Lipitor 20 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37 Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80 Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasec 10 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14 Percent markup: 134,493%

Prilosec 20 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97 Cost of general active ingredients $0.52 Percent markup: 69,417%

Xanax 1 mg Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024 Percent markup: 569,958%

The email also explained the profits to be made by pharmacies when they talk you in to using the generic equivalent of your name brand prescriptions.

If you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are “saving” $20.

What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

It pays to shop around. The email I received gave several examples, but I'll tell you my own experience instead.

I had read before that Costco charged far less than drug stores, so last time I filled my husband's prescription for pain pills, I tried them out. It was true. The same bottle of pills that cost over $30 at home was $14 at Costco. You don't have to be a member to use the pharmacy, by the way.

The email I received cited many more examples - and you might be interested in seeing if a prescription you take is on the list. To read the entire article, go to:
http://www.health-report.co.uk/obscene_drug_mark_ups.htm