151–160 of 221 posts
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I meant the manufacturer controls the price at which they sell. Ie, if drug X costs $15 to make, and the manufacturer chooses to sell it to retailers/distributors at $2000, they are free to do that.
If that's what you meant, all those people who assumed medicine was like any other product were correct.
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I'm not sure what your point is: It seems you are cherrypicking and then generalizing. For example Duloxetine (generic for Cymbalta) is $4 at CostPlus and $15 at the Walmart link. That in and of itself really does not prove anything either. I may be wrong, though, it's just one additional data point. Maybe you can do the analysis you mention and publish it? The worst that will happen is that all us laypeople will be…
> I think though that CostPlus, if nothing else, has opened the eyes of a great many people who just assumed medicine was like any other product where the manufacturer controls the price Like any other product? There are zero products like that. Manufacturers aren't legally able to control the price even if they propose a contract with a resale price clause. That's why everything has a "manufacturer's suggested retai…
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Hospital profit margins are razor thin in the US. Their pricing is so convoluted because they have to come up with inane contracts with insurance companies to squeeze out every dollar they can. In some instances, doctors in private practices have told me that taking Medicare or Medicaid means making less than minimum wage for certain procedures because the rates are fixed at such low values. In other cases, ER and in…
So hospitals and drug companies in the US are operating at peak efficiency without bilking anyone unnecessarily and yet a huge variety of procedures are more expensive than in the rest of the developed world. That definitely passes a smell test.
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If that's what you meant, all those people who assumed medicine was like any other product were correct.
The difference is who you buy from and how difficult they are to go around to get to the manufacturer.
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Prohibiting such anticompetitive cartel behavior is yet another straightforward market reform that could be implemented tomorrow, if our political process weren't merely a game between providers and "insurers".
Agreed. This Is I why I think it is good that someone is cutting insurance and PBMs out of the supply chain.
For many or most employed people medication will be cheaper through their insurance.
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Many normal pharmacies also have mail-order options. Which are often very annoying to use. I have tried many times to get my pharmacy to deliver by mail. It typically works for a few months, then they stop bothering, or fail to request a refill until I call them, or mumble something about the drug not being legal to ship even though it was successfully delivered earlier by this pharmacy and by other mail-order pharma…
When can we stop with the "during a pandemic" FUD? It's been well over two years. Everyone who is getting vaccinated is vaccinated. Vaccines and tests are widely available for free. At some point you need to stop being afraid of standing next to people in line. I'm triple vaxxed and have no problem with mask or vaccine mandates where they make sense. But stuff like "oh you want me to use a stylus in a pandemic ?!?" o…
Just an annoying experience, COVID or no COVID. It's time for the pharmacy business to either review and improve its practices, or be replaced.
I worked for a PBM back in the 90s. The company, and the whole industry, was/is shady AF. I remember once when I was volun-told to work for new program that handled "rebates". They needed a nerd to support the servers/databases. There was a presentation explaining the program and how it worked. At the conclusion, I asked, "So, this is a kick-back?", and the room went silent. "No, it's not a kick-back. It's a rebate."…
The chain of money goes from managed care/insurance buyer (individual/employer/government) to MCO to healthcare provider, whether it be a pharmacy, a drug manufacturer, a hospital, or a doctor. The fact that the middle has a tiny profit margin means there is not much juice to squeeze there.
So far we have
goodrx, singlecare, etc.
amazon.com/primerx
walmart.com/pharmacy (walmart.com/cp/pharmacy-mail-order/1042239)
geniusrx.com
ro.co/pharmacy
costplusdrugs.com/medications
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When has the US had a Capitalist market for healthcare? The US has a particularly horrible hyper regulated, government shielded, cartel-based healthcare system and has for decades - the time during which its healthcare costs have skyrocketed out of control. The US could hardly be further away from Capitalism in how its healthcare system is structured.
If you really think dropping regulations and making it a free for all for multi-billion dollar corporations to fiddle with our health would improve anything, you're simply lying lol Countries with more regulation and more control by the state have... prices that are a fraction of the US. Surprise. Just like countries with stricter environmental restrictions have fewer clear-cut forests, less polluted water, etc. Unbr…
Funny enough, the quality and ease of access (delays for procedures etc) also "are a fraction of the US"
Either I don't understand the phrase "Vertical integration" or Mark Cuban doesn't. Cuban says "We basically created a vertically integrated manufacturing company." But, they don't do manufacturing, because later Cuban says "The manufacturers love what we're doing for that reason". They also apparently don't do the pharmacy aspect because Cuban says his company "charges a $3 pharmacy fee to pay the pharmacists it work…
It’s a startup, so it’s an iterative approach. They launched with a setup that gets them into the market fast. However, you are right in that this ain’t that big of a deal. Pharmacies pay the acquisition price for the drugs. Then, they make up a fictitious price (called the Usual & Customary price). The U&C is intentionally very high, because it forms the basis for negotiating with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). T…