Posted on 02/17/2019 10:18:43 AM PST by re_tail20
When you go out and make a major purchase for yourself or your family, do you ever do it without first knowing what it’s going to cost you? Of course not.
Yet that is what our health care system asks of millions of Americans every day, when they make health care decisions without knowing what they will cost or show up to the pharmacy counter to pick up a drug they need without knowing the price.
Take prescription drugs: Patients are often in the dark about what their medications will cost them until they get to the pharmacy counter. But more than that, they also often have no idea about how that price of their drugs was calculated in the first place.
President Trump has exposed the dirty secret of drug pricing: There is a shadowy third player in the transaction between patients and their pharmacists: middlemen who have taken a big kickback from the drug manufacturer, which may or may not be reflected in patients’ out-of-pocket costs.
As Americans heard Tuesday in the State of the Union Address, the president is committed to improving fairness and transparency in health care. These back-door deals in health care undermine his vision for drug pricing and are completely unacceptable.
We have already gotten started. Last week, the Trump administration proposed what could be the single biggest change to the way Americans’ drugs are priced at the pharmacy counter, ever. Under the president’s plan, the current system of kickbacks to middlemen would be replaced with transparent, up-front discounts, delivered directly to patients.
Each year, more than $150 billion in rebates are passed around the drug-pricing system — and patients are entirely in the dark about it. In 2017, there were more than $29 billion in rebates in the Medicare Part D program alone...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
” the current system of kickbacks to middlemen would be replaced with transparent, up-front discounts, delivered directly to patients.”
Way to make it happen..... GO President TRUMP!
rebates? tax payer monies? that’s not cheaper prices it’s just subsidized by Unc Sam.
If you don’t have prescription insurance and get a coupon at goodrx.com for a steep discount on drugs and it will also tell you what store in your area has the lowest prices. If anayone with a a smart phone can get the discount, why have the higher price in the first place?
I’ve long advocated for health care hospitals and clinics and labs to put their pricing online. Recently I had an MRI done and the lab REFUSED to give me the cash price which was lower than what they charged my insurance even the insurance didn’t cover it. So I have been paying them $25 a month.
As of last January it is a requirement for hospitals to post prices for their procedures online.
Get the federal government completely out of healthcare. The market will always solve everything and brings the best deal to everywhere.
I had an MRI 3 months ago on my lower back, $500 Cash Price, I have no insurance anymore thanks to bath house barry. Insurance is Billed at $2000 and they get reimbursed the same $500.
Because I had insurance, even insurance I told them would not pay, the =y said they HAD to charge me the full price, s=which is bullshit. junk price.So like I said, I’ll pay them $25 a month for like 6 years.
I had what was called cadillac health insurance where they covered 90 to 100%. Obamacare screwed that up to where now they pay about 75%. I guess I was lucky, my brother was dumped by his insurance, which he was supposed to have for life. His insurance provider found the loophole in Obamacare to dump him and even stated that if Obamacare were to be repealed the refusal of coverage would not be reversed.
The co-pay for a month's worth of the mixture is around $2.00.
The co-pay for a substitute for the single missing component was ~$140.00!
...and you still had to buy the other component for ~$2.00...
~~~~~~~~~~
Fortunately, the shortage seems to be being resolved -- after "only" three expensive and inconvenient months. But, you still have to search for a pharmacy that has a supply of the mixture...
There is zero excuse for a drug that does half the job of a ~$2.00 one to cost ~$140.00 (Co-pay)!
Looks like opportunistic robbery, to me.
The tax write offs in the medical system are huge. Charge $2,000, get $500 from the insurance company and write of the rest.
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