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I am all for competition, but i really think there should be some government oversight on prices, even if private services handle the delivery etc. I wonder what items can't be delivered. I suspect a large uptick in the theft of Amazon deliveries with this news.
"Notably, the pharmacy will not sell Schedule II medications, which includes many common opioids like Oxycontin."
But, that does still leave expensive meds, like diabetes drugs.
As a British citizen, this is so disturbing to me.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In other countries, government “negotiation” is just a euphemism for price controls. An example of this is Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which regulates drug prices. This isn’t “negotiation”, this is just centralized policy-driven price control. The US could very well institute their own price controls on drugs, but it wouldn’t invalidate the value in services like Amazon’s, especially if the price…
I support price controls in the US, and the government manufacturing generics if necessary (stepping in if the private sector won't due to it not being profitable enough). EDIT: I removed an unrelated paragraph about Planned Parenthood and drug supply chain I thought was out of scope.
That’s effectively what government-enforced drug patents are for. I think it’s debatable whether that’s the best implementation of what you’re describing. Government sponsored “Prizes” are another approach that sounds promising -> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/pr...
I donate to Planned Parenthood as well, and decoupling drug purchasing from insurance is a reliable way to make sure that everyone can get access to birth control or contraceptive, even if their employer feels strongly opposed to it (eg Hobby Lobby).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really believe the government will do a better job?
Don't they do a better job in lots of other countries? I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that a lot of the countries with socialized medicine such that their government is the one negotiating with drug manufacturers pay substantially less for drugs than customers in the US.
If this is the case, I wonder what would happen to drug development if that goes away.
Note, I'm not saying there's not too much profit from drugs. These statements don't have anything to do with that.
"Prime members will also be able to save on medication bought in person from over 50,000 pharmacies across the US, including Rite Aid, CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens."
I assume that means that Amazon actually worked with all of these companies? Does anyone see that on any of the Amazon pages?
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You can probably save more at Walmart https://www.walmart.com/cp/4-prescriptions/1078664 Prescription Program includes up to a 30-day supply for $4 and a 90-day supply for $10 of some covered generic drugs at commonly prescribed dosages.
This is very similar (and really interesting) though I’m not sure if Walmart has a special condition on use of insurance. Amazon appears to be incentivizing customers to not use insurance to pay for their drugs. I’m not sure if Walmart does the same. If so, that’s also noteworthy.
In many cases, the discounts in the discount programs are subsidized by the drug companies for uninsured patients.
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…
Far be it for me to dispute the knowledge of a random throwaway, but I'd be surprised if there Amazon didn't have access controls to prevent looking up customer prescription history. I know the hoops I have to go through just to access customer resource metadata in AWS Support. There are multiple, auditable checks that force you to provide access justification to resources -- and the process is routinely modified to…
Should people be comfortable with Amazon tracking their drug purchases alongside all the other tracking they do of them?
How will Amazon use the tracking information from drug purchases?
Amazon has copied many patented products to sell under their own brand. Would they do that with drugs and use the same tactics?
I am all for competition, but i really think there should be some government oversight on prices, even if private services handle the delivery etc. I wonder what items can't be delivered. I suspect a large uptick in the theft of Amazon deliveries with this news.
>I wonder what items can't be delivered. "Notably, the pharmacy will not sell Schedule II medications, which includes many common opioids like Oxycontin." But, that does still leave expensive meds, like diabetes drugs.
Beyond insulin, schedule 3 or lower designated drugs include: Suboxone, Ketamine, Klonopin, Xanax, and Valium.