Prescription drug prices

[Bluehawk]

Not totally sure how true all this is, but here it is anyway (it was sent to me by retired Navy officer Hayes, a good friend, and former County Sheriff back home):

"EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT OVER 50
Very Interesting

A car company can move its factories to Mexico and claim it's a free
market. A toy company can outsource to a Chinese subcontractor and
claim it's a free market.

A major bank can incorporate in Bermuda to avoid taxes and claim
it's a free market

We can buy HP printers made in Mexico. We can buy shirts made in
Bangladesh. We can purchase almost anything we want from many
different countries, BUT heaven help the elderly who dare to buy their
prescription drugs from a Canadian or Mexican pharmacy. That's called
un-American!

If you think the pharmaceutical companies don't have a powerful
lobby, think again!!!!
(Please forward this to every person you know over age 50)

IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY!!!!
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 U nited 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 chart below speaks for itself.

DRUG NAME 100 TAB PRICE ACTUAL COST MARKUP
Celebrex 100 mg $130.27 $0.60
21,712%
Claritin 10 mg $215.17 $0.71
30,306%
Keflex 250 mg $157.39 $1.88
8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80
4,696%
Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14
34,493%
Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60
2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg $44.77 $1.01
34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg $360.97 $0.52
69,417%
Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11
224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13
80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20
51,185%
Xanax 1 mg $136.79 $0.024
569,958%
Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20
2,809%
Zithromax 600 mg $1,482.19 $18.78
7,892%
Zocor 40 mg $350.27 $8.63
4,059%
Zoloft 50 mg $206.87 $1.75
11,821%


Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought
everyone I knew 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 ..........

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 for100 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 gene ric 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 over $700. 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."