PSA for Americans

[blamebrampton]

Just watching PBS Newshour, as I like to do when I have a chance, and they had a story on pricing practices of chain pharmacies. They compared a number of cancer, cholesterol and mental health drugs from a number of outlets.

At Costco, the woman who the story was based on found her generic cancer medication for $11 for 30 days. At Target it was $450 for the same script. Yep, $11 v $450. No typos. To be fair to Target, they did offer to price match when told of the lower figure.

According to PBS, many people do not shop around on prescriptions. It appears it would be very much worth the time to do so. For the drugs looked at, price differences ranged from around 10 times to the 40+ above. I thoroughly recommend the story, and apparently a website called Good Rx does a good job of comparing prices on major generics, too.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be over here giving a big juicy snog to the public health systems I have enjoyed throughout my life. I recognise the fact that I am very lucky!

Comments

[astardanced77.livejournal.com]

I remember reading an article during the Obamacare debate by a woman who had survived childhood cancer. Her parents had gone bankrupt twice paying for her treatment. She was now an adult and completely cancer free. However, because of her history, her monthly health insurance premium was more than her income. She ended up moving to England and becoming a British citizen because of the NHS.

I find the healthcare debate mind-boggling because I work in health statistics. Every time I look at the OECD comparison rates I am a little more grateful I live in Australia.

[josephinestone.livejournal.com]

I would love to move, my husband and I talk about it a lot. But we don't really have the money for that type of move, and our family would kill us. Plus, most of the places we'd want to go wouldn't allow our daughter to move there because she is Autistic.