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Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

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Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#191

Post by marcod »

llee37x wrote: post #2

Just a heads up, if you use this service PillPack and Amazon Employees have full access to your entire prescription history. Full name, social everything - it was common for employees to look up the info of celebrities / other employees for fun. Any prescription / healthcare info you give them will be sold back to SureScripts and used to sell you more garbage from Amazon ;) https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-mail-or…

I worked for amazon for 10+ years. Sure, in the beginning, a lot of people had access to customer accounts. However, all that was locked down, I wanna say before 2010. Strictly need to know and every access logged.

So, if I wasn't able to look what book a customer purchased, I highly doubt I could see anyone's RX, especially since HIPAA is very clear on those points.

TL;DR: I think your claim is full of it.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#192

Post by peoplenotbots »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #14
bhupy wrote: post #7

> Amazon claims Prime members will be able to save “up to 80 percent off generic and 40 percent off brand name medications when paying without insurance. This was buried in the article, but is IMO a bigger deal. In the long run, this could really drive down drug prices.

Instead of the Govt being the price negotiator, we got giant corporations instead. yay

Next up Renaissance style guild wars between rival companies Amazon endorsed candidate vs Walmart endorsed candidates

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#193

Post by LatteLazy »

bhupy wrote: post #143
dave5104 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the difference between affording a car and not being able to afford a car would kill me, then maybe I would like the government to step in to negotiate on behalf of all of its citizens.

Not being able to afford food can also kill you (you would starve to death). Is that a sufficient justification for the government to step in to negotiate food prices on behalf of its citizens? There are merits to government price controls and there are certainly countries that have employed them successfully. That said, it isn’t the only solution to bending the cost curve, and there are also downsides to price contr…

I agree on the wider point but in case you or some other reader were unaware...

Government does that in the US (and the EU and Canada and basically every first world nation that's not a city state). The department of agriculture and others spend somewhere between 10s and 100s of billions every year to make sure that food (and other crop) prices stay within carefully set, tightly defined limits.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#194

Post by jedberg »

bhupy wrote: post #7

> Amazon claims Prime members will be able to save “up to 80 percent off generic and 40 percent off brand name medications when paying without insurance. This was buried in the article, but is IMO a bigger deal. In the long run, this could really drive down drug prices.

Walgreens has an insurance plan too. It was cheaper for me to buy Walgreen's insurance and then my drugs than it was to just use my own insurance, and I had Platinum+ insurance at the time.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#195

Post by bird_monster »

kgin wrote: post #188
bird_monster wrote: post #130

Kind of astounded at the responses in this thread insisting on believing Amazon wouldn't do anything nasty or obviously illegal with an individual's healthcare data. They've done nasty and obviously illegal things with all of the other data that passes through their systems, and yet here we are defending and getting excited about them further intruding into our lives.

It's not about trusting Amazon except to trust the company wants to stay in business and not commit regulatory suicide right out of the gate

Since when is Amazon interested in following outside regulation?

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#196

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #147
bhupy wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s captured by (1) risk sharing. Pooled risk sharing is great for things like fire departments where out of 1000 homes, one might catch fire every few months. It’s also great for societies where out of 1000 people, a small handful suffer from chronic illnesses or tragic accidents and the remaining are healthy. The problem is that it’s just a hammer, and not everything in healthcare is a nail.

Taxes are basically risk sharing across the whole population. But I wanted to specify that it's not risk sharing like your auto insurance is, or home insurance, or term life insurance. Those are infrequent, random events for the most part. Whereas, healthcare is a guaranteed expense, so the premiums are just prepaying for the coming expenses. But today, you're not paying for your healthcare expenses, but for the olde…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#198

Post by peter303 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #127
bhupy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, for full disclosure, I work in healthcare pricing and payments and adjust claims myself. While discount programs focus on the uninsured, this is the first time I’m seeing the discount being framed in such a way that it effectively incentivizes paying out of pocket. It’s an important incentive if your goal is to decouple routine drugs from the third-party-payer model of insurance. Health insurance in the US is ac…

I would add a 4th service for health insurance in the US to be a way for healthy, young people to pay for the care of sicker, old people due. AKA, a tax, due to the following stipulations of the ACA. 1) Age Rating Factors https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Programs-and-Initiatives/Health-In... 2) Out of pocket maximums for in network care 3) Elimination of pre-existing conditions, i.e. accepting all lives no matter how costly…

You will get old

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#199

Post by renewiltord »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #146
spir wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American resident, I couldn't be more excited for Amazon to disrupt the reprehensible anti-customer practices endemic to the US healthcare system. Recently, I had a runny nose and no fever and thought, "what the heck, let's get a COVID test", and found out they are $200+ here in Austin.

The market puts a price on things to prevent people from frivolously wasting resources and to improve availability to people who actually need them. Edit to remove snarky tone.

The market would do that if you removed the regulatory monopoly guarantees.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#200

Post by peter303 »

llee37x wrote: post #2

Just a heads up, if you use this service PillPack and Amazon Employees have full access to your entire prescription history. Full name, social everything - it was common for employees to look up the info of celebrities / other employees for fun. Any prescription / healthcare info you give them will be sold back to SureScripts and used to sell you more garbage from Amazon ;) https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-mail-or…

HIPAA makes this a crime. The employee and Amazon would be subject to fines and perhaps prosecution.
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