Prescription Meds Cost

[Montauk_Project]

$40000 a month? That has to be something like Soliris right? I wouldn't call being able to treat a previously untreatable debilitating and often fatal disease as being immoral.

to decide between your life and paying 40000USD is immoral to me. Health isn´t any consumer good, so it is very easy for companies to charge too much. If you had to sell your house or die, what would you choose?

 

[DontMindMe]

Hello all,

I'm planning to move to B.A. in August and am looking for some updated info on prescription medication costs. I'm trying to figure out how much some blood pressure and some anxiety medication would cost, with a prescription but without insurance. Ballpark estimates welcome! Any thoughts on the matter are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I just bought a very common anti-arrhythmia/high blood pressure medication. It's only available with a prescription, or at least that's what it says on the box. A 30-day supply (or 60-day supply if your dosage is lower and you split the pills in half) was AR $114.31. That's the full price without any insurance discount.

I was going to buy two boxes, but they only had one left. That's the second time now that I haven't been able to buy medication due to import restrictions. Está en falta is what they'll say in Spanish. So prices are one thing, but whether your medication will actually be available or not is quite another. The first time this happened I had to run around to several pharmacies trying to get someone to give me a generic, because the name brand (which I had a prescription for) was, you guessed it, en falta. A couple independent pharmacies didn't want to give me the generic because the inactive ingredients (asociados) were different from the name brand...um, hello, that's why it's generic. :wacko: Farmacity, on the other hand, uses a computerized system that only shows the active ingredients, so I was able to get it there. Oh, but I had to go back the next day because their system needed to update with the new, higher price so they could run my health insurance. I have fallen out of love a bit with the healthcare system here...

 

[PhilipDT]

to decide between your life and paying 40000USD is immoral to me. Health isn´t any consumer good, so it is very easy for companies to charge too much. If you had to sell your house or die, what would you choose?

I'd obviously sell my house.

If health isn't a consumer good, and is rather a fundamental right, there is a chance nobody would have that medicine and could you really say that that is a better situation?

The most expensive drug in the world, which I'm pretty sure is the one you're talking about, could be rejected this year by the UK's national institute for healthcare excellence in a second round of evaluations, which would mean that it would not be available under the country's socialized medicine system. That seems far more immoral to me. Like it or not health care has a cost, no matter who pays it. There is also a scarcity of resources, would it be moral to pay billions to extend by 10 years the life of a a thousand people at the cost of extending by 5 years life of a hundred million?

It's a tough question, I don't think the current system in the US is the best, I actually think Argentina's system is slightly better but I wouldn't call it perfect either. I'm not sure what the right answer is or if there is one, it's far from cut and dry

Think about this, if it was discovered that certain diseases responded to treatment only in the absence of gravity. If you had $50 million dollars I'm sure you'd give it a shot, but would it be immoral to charge that for that service?

 

[PhilipDT]

I just bought a very common anti-arrhythmia/high blood pressure medication. It's only available with a prescription, or at least that's what it says on the box. A 30-day supply (or 60-day supply if your dosage is lower and you split the pills in half) was AR $114.31. That's the full price without any insurance discount.

I was going to buy two boxes, but they only had one left. That's the second time now that I haven't been able to buy medication due to import restrictions. Está en falta is what they'll say in Spanish. So prices are one thing, but whether your medication will actually be available or not is quite another. The first time this happened I had to run around to several pharmacies trying to get someone to give me a generic, because the name brand (which I had a prescription for) was, you guessed it, en falta. A couple independent pharmacies didn't want to give me the generic because the inactive ingredients (asociados) were different from the name brand...um, hello, that's why it's generic. :wacko: Farmacity, on the other hand, uses a computerized system that only shows the active ingredients, so I was able to get it there. Oh, but I had to go back the next day because their system needed to update with the new, higher price so they could run my health insurance. I have fallen out of love a bit with the healthcare system here...

I'm guessing that the problem might not be problems with the actual importation rather that the government has tightly controlled the increase prices of medicine while heavily devaluing the currency. If your cost skyrockets but the price you can sell it for barely moves, you might just decide not sell it.

 

[Montauk_Project]

I'd obviously sell my house.

If health isn't a consumer good, and is rather a fundamental right, there is a chance nobody would have that medicine and could you really say that that is a better situation?

. . .

Think about this, if it was discovered that certain diseases responded to treatment only in the absence of gravity. If you had $50 million dollars I'm sure you'd give it a shot, but would it be immoral to charge that for that service?

yes, that would be immoral. The state should provide health care for all, regardless of their level of income. Just as the state provides police officers, public schools, fire fighters, roads, street lights, etc. I don´t want some people to live because they are rich, and some to die because they are poor. I also don´t want to be extorted into saving my life or that of my loved ones.
Most of the high costs of drugs go to marketing, advertising, packaging, etc

 

[EdRooney]

Most of the high costs of drugs go to marketing, advertising, packaging, etc

that and the high price of having lobbyists/bribery in order to pump politicians with enough campaign money to ensure that the government enforces their company's product monopoly, so the drug company can continue to charge exorbitant rates for them.

 

[PhilipDT]

Most of the high costs of drugs go to marketing, advertising, packaging, etc

For new patent protected drugs (the expensive ones) that's not true.

yes, that would be immoral. The state should provide health care for all, regardless of their level of income. Just as the state provides police officers, public schools, fire fighters, roads, street lights, etc. I don´t want some people to live because they are rich, and some to die because they are poor. I also don´t want to be extorted into saving my life or that of my loved ones.

I agree with you, 100% However, here is the one principal problem with that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY! Adding an extra firefighter takes away a police officer. Building a new school means the kids may have to walk there on dirt roads. And managing the symptoms of someone with a an incredibly rare terminal disease might mean hiring one less ER doc and having 10 people a year die in triage.

I agree that health care is a human right and should be the responsibility of the state, but I think it is incredibly naive to think that unlimited health care for everyone provided by the state is ever achievable. Just like I think security is a human right but I know that it would be ridiculous to expect to have a police officer on each corner.

 

[EdRooney]

"There is not enough money" totally ignores the plain-as-day fact that the difference between the US system and those in the rest of the developed world is that costs in the US are through the roof (with poor results to show for it) while other countries manage to keep costs down (and get better results).

Healthcare costs do not have to be so high, other countries (such as Germany, South Korea, Japan... hell almost everybody else) are living proof of this. In the US it's a clear policy choice: let's have a hugely expensive private bureaucracy, let's have ridiculous state protections for private drug copyrights to prevent affordable generics, let's protect physicians from foreign competition so that they can charge twice what they do in more civilised countries...

This might be some kind of abstract point to understand were it not for the multitude of other countries that manage to do things better for less money.

"There is not enough money..."

Well there would be a heckuva lot more money if they'd make simple changes to bring costs in line with other countries who have better results.

 

[PhilipDT]

"There is not enough money" totally ignores the plain-as-day fact that the difference between the US system and those in the rest of the developed world is that costs in the US are through the roof (with poor results to show for it) while other countries manage to keep costs down (and get better results).

Healthcare costs do not have to be so high, other countries (such as Germany, South Korea, Japan... hell almost everybody else) are living proof of this. In the US it's a clear policy choice: let's have a hugely expensive private bureaucracy, let's have ridiculous state protections for private drug copyrights to prevent affordable generics, let's protect physicians from foreign competition so that they can charge twice what they do in more civilised countries...

This might be some kind of abstract point to understand were it not for the multitude of other countries that manage to do things better for less money.

"There is not enough money..."

Well there would be a heckuva lot more money if they'd make simple changes to bring costs in line with other countries who have better results.

Completely agree with you. Even so, there is still never going to be enough money.

The doctor's union in the US does what every union does, advocate for the rights of the of it's members at the expense of everyone else.

 

[EdRooney]

I remember once, during the 2000 election, the NYT ran an article on health care, which neither major candidate was really talking about. It said something to the effect of "While polls consistently show that a majority of Americans prefer a single-payer health care system, it's just not politically possible."

That seems to agree with what you're saying: we're doomed to swallow whatever pile of manure the Masters of Mankind in Washington shove on our plate, and we have no choice in the matter. (BTW, in proper parlance this is known as "Democracy").

Well, I for one don't believe everything I read in the New York Times.


Americans spend in the neighbourhood of 20% of their GDP on this travesty of a healthcare system, and it is the Nº 1 source of bankruptcy in the country. Something tells me you cannot go on like that indefinitely.