I just picked up a prescription for my wife that really irritated me to no end. This is a very old generic formulation that is produced by only one company now and not available from most providers. With our insurance there is no charge for this prescription, but the cash cost for someone without insurance is $2158.01 for a 90 day supply. I doubt if anyone ever has to pay that amount, but probably much more than they should. There is no reason other than greed that a drug which has had all of its development costs covered and gone to be generic should ever have such a price tag. A friend of ours has MS and the price of the medication even with her insurance is outrageous. I realize there are costs incurred for new drugs, but it is very clear that our system in the US is broken and broken badly where medication is concerned. The lowest GoodRx price for the most common version of XXXXXXXXXX is around $58.32, 82% off the average retail price of $341.67. The typical counter price for XXXXXXXXXX is $725.55 per 90, 20MG Capsule, but you can pay only $82.00 with the SingleCare prescription drug discount card to leverage the XXXXXXXXXX coupon. XXXXXXXXXX is a generic drug
That is just awful! You want to hear something else about healthcare costs? Back in ‘95 when we had our son at the hospital, we paid a whopping $100. That was our TOTAL financial responsibility for his birth - $100! And that included 2 days of excellent, round the clock nursing care. Baby wellness visits were free, and other family doctor visits were $10. Our medications were also $10 during that time. My husband wasn’t even working a very good job then either. And the funny thing is, as a country, we weren’t nearly as rich as we are now! But lots of people at that time had very similar healthcare plans, and it really wasn’t all that long ago. So, yeah, I’d say with just medication costs alone being so high like that, the system is definitely dysfunctional and not working for average Americans. What makes me laugh though, are some posters on here talking about the evils of “Socialized Medicine”, when for MANY YEARS we ALREADY HAD an affordable healthcare system that worked for the majority of Americans that was based on CAPITALISM until it disappeared. We don’t need Socialism. We need better Capitalism.
Not that I do not believe your source, but it does not appear to be truthful, nor does it even exist now .... there is a single payer system in the UK, thus the lack of medical bills. The illness or injury causing a lack of work is a possibility but that is not medical expenses. https://www.yourmoney.com/credit-cards-loans/living-beyond-means-common-reason-bankruptcy/ Figures from The Insolvency Service show there was a total of 48,880 bankruptcy applications made in England and Wales between April 2014 and March 2018. There were 25,690 court-based petitions, and 23,190 made online via the government site – the Office of the Adjudicator. Looking at the reasons behind the bankruptcy orders, 8,280 were due to living beyond their means, 7,270 cited a relationship breakdown and 5,720 blamed a reduced income. Loss of employment was a reason given by 4,970 applicants, illness and accident was cited by 4,590, and the failure of a new venture was behind 1,390.
To be fair, I will say that our total investment cost so far in one pill that recently hit the market is over $5.5 billion, between R&D and construction to build a plant to produce that pill. That is not including any raw materials or operating costs to produce it. It takes about 800 employees to run said plant as well, so that factors into the operating costs as well (over $100M/year for total compensation). Even with all that, we only will produce a few tons of finished product per year. Which is well below expected demand over time. So sometimes it is quite expensive to produce meds.
Yes, and that is a more acceptable situation compared to drugs which have been on the market long enough to go generic and the generic is priced outrageously.
In a study that analyzed 1,200 generic drugs, the authors found that generic-drug prices in the U.S. are related to market competition levels. Additionally, it has been suggested that some companies have developed business models based on noncompetitive markets for older drugs and have cornered the niche generic-drug market with the intent to increase drug prices. Greene JA, Anderson G, Sharfstein JM. Role of the FDA in affordability of off-patent pharmaceuticals. JAMA. 2016;315:461-462.
