Prescription Drug RIPOFF!!

[Ravin R10 man]

Received this in an E-MAIL today....I did NOT write this..oneida man.

(This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington,D.C.offices. Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make..... we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. The data below speaks for itself......CELEBREX: 100 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60Percent markup: 21,712%.....CLARITIN: 10 mg. Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.11 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71 Percent markup: 30,306%.....KEFLEX: 250 mg Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39 Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88 Percent markup: 8,372%....LIPITOR 20 mgConsumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37 Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80 Percent markup: 4,696%....NORVASC: Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14 Percent markup: 134,493%.....PAXIL: 20 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27 Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60 Percent markup: 2,898%.....PREVACID: 30 mg< BR>Consumer price (100 tablets): Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01 Percent markup: 34,136%......PRILOSEC : 20 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97 Cost of general active ingredients $0.52Percent markup: 69,417%.....PROZAC: 20 mg Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11 Percent markup: 224,973%.....TENORMIN: 50 mg Consumer price (100 tab lets): $10 4.47 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13 Percent markup: 80,362%....VASOTEC: 10 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20 Percent markup: 51,185%....XANAX: 1 mg Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024 Percent markup: 569,952%......ZESTRIL: 20 mgConsumer price (100 tablets) $89.89 Cost of general active ingredients $3.20 Percent markup: 2,809%.....ZITHROMAX: 600 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19 Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78 Percent markup: 7,892%....ZOCOR: 40 mg Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27 Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63 Percent markup: 4,059%....ZOLOFT: 50 mg Consumer price: $206.87 Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75 Percent markup: 11,821%.......Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a WALGREENS on every corner!! On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit , did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so . But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves.For example, 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! At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled!! Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, COMPAZINE, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills,I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a

federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own

e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address! Thank You!

[slughunter]

WOW, thats really interesting.

-shane

[Ravin R10 man]

Let's hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure youread all the way past

the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst outof federalWashington , DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drugcompany for the act ive ingredient in prescriptionmedications? Some people think it must cost a lot,

since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemicalsynthesizers that supply the active ingredients

found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we haverevealed in past issues of Life Extension, asignificant percentage of drugs sold in the United

States contain active ingredients made in othercountries. In our independent investigation of howmuch profit drug companies really make, we obtained

the actual price of active ingredi ents used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America

The data below speaks for itself.

Celebrex: 100 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60

Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 10 mg

Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71

Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex: 250 mg

Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39

Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88

Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor: 20 mg

Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37

Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80

Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc: 10 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14

Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil: 20 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27

Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60

Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid: 30 mg< BR>Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77

Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01

Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec : 20 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97

Cost of general active ingredients $0.52

Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac: 20 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11

Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin: 50 mg

Consumer price (100 tab lets): $10 4.47

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13

Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec: 10 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20

Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax: 1 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79

Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024

Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril: 20 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89

Cost of general active ingredients $3.20

Percent markup: 2,809

Zithromax: 600 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19

Cos t of general active ingredients: $18.78

Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor: 40 mg

Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27

Cost of general active ingredi ents: $8.63

Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft: 50 mg

Consumer price: $206.87

Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75

Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on.

It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. On Monday night, Steve

Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit , did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in hisinvestigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three tho usand percent! So often, we

blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so . But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves.

For example, 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!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether, or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and

he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online

prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for$19.89. For 145 of my pain pills,I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a

federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is t rue)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

[elkoholic]

Well, this is part of the story. While I will agree that there is a cost shifting to cash paying customers to make up for reduced third party (insurance) reimbursement, the average pharmacy is not making a ton of money. In the business world, gross profit margin is the key term and to maintain a successful business one needs a GPM of close to 40%. Due to decreasing insurance reimbursement rates most pharmacies are lucky to average 10-15%. Independent pharmacies are going out of business at an ever increasing rate because of this. Large chain pharmacies are making it on volume alone. If you are a cash paying customer you are paying more because of the cost shifting to make up for some of the reduced reimbursement rates. Current Medicare part D reimbursement rates leave the pharmacy I manage on the losing end with Brand name medications and some of the generics also. Under proposed legislation reimbursement will drop to 60-65% of the actual cost of brand name medications and may just cover costs of generics. Remember, there is a lot more to the cost of drugs than raw material costs. The CVS pharmacy you went to was a lot higher in price than the pharmacy I work at, but I can not blame them for trying to make a profit at the end of the day. Costco is not worrying about their pharmacy making money, neither is Wal-Mart, but at the prices they are selling at I would be surprised if they are not losing money at the end of the day. And that is not even half the story. You do not even want to know the markup on most of what you buy, for it would drive you insane. The rising cost of doing business will be felt all over and when the government gets a hand in it, well, it only gets worse.

[The Kid]

dang thats crazy

[BowJoe]

Well, speaking from the in-law to an entirely medical family, my brother in law is a National sales trainer for a pharmaceutical company, his wife is a sales rep for a rival company, my wife is an LPN, my Mother in law (Crazy ol' bat is what I like to call her) is an LPN, my sister in law is an RN and her ex husband is a doctor. I can tell you first hand that I have enjoyed many, many meals from reps visiting offices and hospitals while trying to get the doctors to prescribe their drugs. Tons of swag with logos on them, tons of meals paid for by the reps, most reps make at least $80-$90,000 a year or more (my brother in law makes around $200,000 a year) and not to mention the billions of dollars that go into research, lawyers for the lawsuits, FDA testing, all the filing that has to go into regulating a drug to even get approved for use and to top it all off, you still have to pay for the actual manufacturing of the millions of pills a day that are taken when it's a popular drug like vicodin (sp). I'm not justifying the cost but maybe a better explanation than just the low cost of materials. You can say that a seed of corn is cheap and it makes more from one so it should all be cheap but try telling that to a farmer struggling to make ends meet. One aspect doesn't make the whole situation different.

[wtnhunt]

Kind of funny in a way this comes up at this point in time. We had a pharmacy here just a few weeks ago lie to me about a drug for our 2 year old. Not the pharmacy we normally use, and it was about 40 minutes from home, but it was the only pharmacy around here according to the specialist we had taken my daughter to that could get this drug for her, which seemed unusual, but we really had no other choice. Apparently wal mart could not get it for her to be taken by mouth as it was ordered, but they could get the med to be taken with a nebulizer, which was not an option.

Anyway, first time around we got the drug filled no problems. Went to get it refilled after calling ahead, and they had it ordered in and ready, we sat at the window for quite some time waiting. They came back and told me that the insurance company was refusing to pay, and then told me that the drug had been recalled by the fda or something, which seemed really odd. The drug retail was over $300 according to that pharmacy, our copay was $40. We had a few days worth of doses left still at the time I went to that pharmacy, so I left to come home and made some phone calls, hoping to clear this up. The comment they made to me that the insurance was not willing to pay was simply not true. After getting home I talked to the insurance company myself and they told me that the drug was allowed to be refilled up to 180 days, and that the fda HAD NOT recalled it as the pharmacy had told me. I was pretty ticked and told my wife she needed to deal with them. She called them back, and the pharmacy told her they could not sell the drug to us at our copay because they were losing money on it, a slightly different story from what they told me. I do not know if the drug cost them more than what they were allowed by the insurance or if their markup was more than what the insurance allowed, anyway, we ended up running out of the medicine, and my daughters physician ended up having us make adjustments to how much allergy meds we were giving our daughter, which may end up working out for her. While I was ticked about being lied to by the pharmacy, I can understand how if a drug costs them more than what the insurance company is paying them back, where they are losing money, and can understand why they would not want to sell at a loss.

Unfortunately there are many markets where the consumers get gouged at unbelievable extremes, and the profits are not always going where you might expect. Do not think it is necessarily the pharmacies that are the culprits, at least not in all cases. Pharmaceutical reps as Joe pointed out do make some pretty good money. My wife goes to seminars and conventions from time to time with her work, and from what she has told me the pharmaceutical reps spend a fortune at these conventions for their companies.

[Ohiobucks]

http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp

See the last paragraph at Snopes.com.....that will explain the inflated mark-ups.

[stevebeilgard]

good point, ohiobucks. and, let's not forget the attorney factor. if someone devleops a problem years and years from now, courts award that person tens of millions of dollars. happens all the time. just add that cost to the pill you buy...