saving on drugs: Costco

[Guest guest]

I received this from a friend ...

This is shocking! Joe buys Afrin Nasal spray .5 oz at Longs is $6.50.

The same generic medication at Costco two 1oz spray bottles for

$1.99. This means you get four times the quantity for less than 1/3

the price. And, Costco is making a profit! Go Costco!! Cheers,

LaVonne

Drug info from friends:

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 chart below speaks for itself.

BRAND NAME CONSUMER PRICE COST OF GENERAL PERCENT

MARKUP

OF DRUG 100 TABS ACTIVE INGREDIENTS

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

$0.14 134,493%

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 1mg $136.79

$0.024 569,958%

Zestril 20 mg $89.89

$3.20 2,809%

Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19

$18.78 7,892%

Zocor 40mg $350.27

$8..63 4,059%

Zoloft 50mg $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 Walgreen's on every corner..................

On Monday night, Steve , an investigative reporter for channel

7News

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. 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.

[Guest guest]

I don't doubt that that info is true but it is not realistic either. It is

fairly irrelevant data slanted (by the media) to get the greatest visceral

response for a particular purpose.

Try sending someone 11 cents to send you JUST the raw " general active

ingredients " chemicals found in 100 tabs of 20 mg of Prozac (just as an

example) . . . think swallowing those " general active ingredients "

chemicals would help the depression Prozac is intended to treat? And even

that doesn't factor in the R & D necessary to know which " general active

ingredients " might be useful in treating what.

We can no more expect to buy pharmaceuticals by the base cost of the

" general active ingredients " than we could expect to buy a car based on the

base wholesale cost of raw steel, raw rubber, vinyl, etc. Do you expect to

buy clothes based on the cheapest possible raw cost of the threads or

filaments involved? Or, more to the point, on the cost of the seeds planted

to grow cotton plants? And who would procure or identify those seeds for

you? (and at no cost?) Would you expect to buy milk based on the price of

the female calf at birth divided by the total ounces of milk it may produce

in its lifetime? Hardly. But that's how that sort of data is calculated for

shock value.

As far as generic vs. brand name, I'm just glad that some generics exist to

offer cheaper alternatives. You can buy a pair of serviceable jeans at a

farm-type store or discount chain for $10, maybe less . . . or you can pay

$300++ (maybe more) for jeans with some fancy designer label . . . and just

because you (or I) would rather buy the $10 ones (or something in between)

doesn't mean that somebody somewhere doesn't want the $300++ designer ones

(and is able to buy them). The same logic and comparison can be applied to

almost anything available to the consumer. It's a free market system with

lots of choices and alternatives.

Sandy

>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.

>

>BRAND NAME CONSUMER PRICE COST OF GENERAL PERCENT

>MARKUP

>OF DRUG 100 TABS ACTIVE INGREDIENTS

>

>Celebrex 100 mg $130..27

>$0.60 21,712%

[Guest guest]

Sandy Burdsall wrote:

>We can no more expect to buy pharmaceuticals by the base cost of the

> " general active ingredients " than we could expect to buy a car based on the

>base wholesale cost of raw steel, raw rubber, vinyl, etc. Do you expect to

>buy clothes based on the cheapest possible raw cost of the threads or

>filaments involved? Or, more to the point, on the cost of the seeds planted

>to grow cotton plants? And who would procure or identify those seeds for

>you? (and at no cost?) Would you expect to buy milk based on the price of

>the female calf at birth divided by the total ounces of milk it may produce

>in its lifetime? Hardly. But that's how that sort of data is calculated for

>shock value.

>

Wow. I think that's the best explanation of manufacturing costs

I've ever come across. Good job.

Manufacturers do, indeed, add value to raw materials. And they

have indirect costs which are legitimate and have to be added into the

product price in some fashion too. Rent or mortgage has to be paid on

the administration building where the management of the company work,

even though you can't allocate that cost to the manufacture of any

particular product. In the case of the drug companies, they have large

research and development costs, especially for research into drugs

which can't be used. That's why they call it " research. " They're

investigating the known. Those costs have to be recouped somehow and

it's fair to factor those costs into the price of the drugs which do

work and get sold.

Despite all that, a lot of us worry that the drug companies are

ripping us off. I'm taking an old generic diuretic which has long

since recouped and development costs. It cost me $4.09 in 1998, but

costs $6.69 today. How can the cost of an old generic drug like that

increase in price over 50%. And then when you read in the newspaper

that as many as 5 state governments are planning to purchase drugs from

Canada to save money, then you gotta wonder whether the system is out of

kilter.

Edd

[Guest guest]

> Despite all that, a lot of us worry that the drug companies are

>ripping us off. I'm taking an old generic diuretic which has long

>since recouped and development costs. It cost me $4.09 in 1998, but

>costs $6.69 today. How can the cost of an old generic drug like that

>increase in price over 50%.

Do I think pharmaceutical companies have pushed their profit structure too

high? Yes. But so have our medical providers, institutions and related (you

don't see docs eschewing cost/pay hikes for " reimbursement " or decreasing

their standard of living to keep prices " within reach " of folks). But the

cost argument can still be made beyond R & D . . . the companies also cover

such things as heavy costs for litigation, advertising, etc., ad inf. and

increased costs for general operations that they factor into the company

operation as a whole.

I pay more now for all commodities (food, clothes, rent, property taxes,

stamps) and services than I did in 1998. Did you make the same income in

2003 that you did in 1998 for doing the same thing for the same # of hours?

I can't buy the same car today for the same price as I did in 1998.

>And then when you read in the newspaper

>that as many as 5 state governments are planning to purchase drugs from

>Canada to save money, then you gotta wonder whether the system is out of

>kilter.

You'll get no quarrel from me that the system is " out of kilter " but that's

based on different prices for different sectors and " what the traffic will

bear " . . . and a whole different premise/argument. From the logic

standpoint, perhaps there's more litigation costs involved with US sales?

Since our health care system is quite different from Canada's, that

certainly has its financial ramifications as well.

Sandy

[Guest guest]

I paid 24.00 for a bottle of eye drops, actually two bottles of different drops

for 24.00 each. In Mexico the same bottles, same US company was 2.00 each. I go

to Mexico for drugs. The drugs were good and brought the same result as the ones

I bought here. G