Dr. Weeks’ Comment: First the joke:
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An old fellow, gray haired, sore jointed, hearing aids turned up, comes to get his medication at the pharmacy. The pharmacist takes the script, processes it and the young pharmacist tech comes and tells the old patient: “That will be $80. 24 cents please.”
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So the old fellow reaches into his pockets and fishes out 24 cents, having not heard the $80 part of the price. (Hard of hearing, as I said). The young tech is distracted taking care of other patients and, when he comes back, he sees nothing but the 24 cents on the counter, catches a glimpse of the old man leaving the store and calls out after him in desperation: “Come back, old man! Come back! Please come back. There has been a terrible mistake! You forgot to pay the rest of the bill. You still owe us $80!!!”
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With all the commotion, the old pharmacist comes over to see what the problem is. The young tech, quite flustered at the loss of $80 explains the developments and apologizes profusely, supposing that a hearing aid malfunction led to the mis-communication.
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“But what shall we do?” he implores the pharmacist close to tears and wringing his hands. “I am certain I told him $80.24 but he only heard “24 cents” and that is all he paid and now, now he is GONE!…”
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The old pharmacist looked at the stricken young pharmacist tech, then looked at the 24 cents on the counter and then looked back at the flustered young employee before smiling and placing a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder. With his other hand, he gathered up the 24 cents and, said: “Not to worry. After all, 100% profit is a lot better than nothing.”
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And now the happy ending : Costco pulls up the skirt of Big Pharma.
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Costco – Unbelievable!
Story verified @ http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp
Make sure you read to the end. You will be amazed.
Let’s hear it for Costco! (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 , DC 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 inAmerica .
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
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 tablets): $104.47
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
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.
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 prices gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. 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.
Check out This site for price comparison:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050326070849/web.wxyz.com/extras/040205-drugchart.html
Sharon L. Davis
Budget Analyst
U.S. Department of Commerce
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458