Posted: Nov 23, 07
7:21am
This is one of those tirades I get on but you may actually find it useful and save yourself a whole lot of money.
Prescription Drugs ..
Because of a "bunch of cost saving Bull'Shee'iTskie .. My old-employer raised my monthly premium for retiree prescription drug insurance coverage from $87.00/mo to $237.00/mo. and the co-pay was raised from $5 to $10. This happened effective 01/01/07. They told us about this increase 1 year in advance, so I had time to Stock Pile medication ( I have 4 recurring monthly prescriptions). I did this by ordering 90 day mail order refills, exactly on the date of eligibility for a refill. Thus I was able to get almost 270 days ahead of the "drop dead date". On 12/31/06, I cancelled my prescription drug coverage.
So I screwed around for 254 days ... then I realized that to get my meds, it was going to cost me out of pocket, $312/mo. Had I kept my drug coverage with my retirement plan, it would have cost me $277/mo. All of a sudden, I realize, " that's a lot of money that I don't have"...!!!
In search of the Holly Grail ..
Since I am the only one impacted by this change ... How in the hell do I reduce my costs for prescription drugs ? I soon realized that I am immediately screwed for generally available state assistance and federal programs. I am not destitute and not on Public Assistance Payouts.
I found that the county I live in, has a discount prescription drug program that is FREE to all county residents. In a nut shell ...it simply gives me 15% off the "sticker price" of a prescription. I'll take the 15% but obviously it's not the Holly Grail.
Hummm ..I thought to myself, Wal-Mart sells 30 day prescriptions for $4.00 each ..." I wonder, what do it mean"..? I immediately found out that they sell around 360 generic drugs this way. So I printed off the drug list and took it to my GP and said " I want my four prescriptions filled from this list of generic drugs"..He looked at the list and wrote me 3 new prescriptions based on Wal-Mart generic drug list with 12 refills each. The 4th prescription, had no generic equivalent but there was an available alternative ..at 1/3 the sticker price. So on that one, I get from Wal-Mart at their normal discounted price, less 15%.
Bottom Line ...same medicine ..Generically made ..all 4 prescriptions = $67.00/mo. I found my Holly Grail ..! I reduced my costs by $245.00/mo. OK .. so I lucked out .. that these $4 drugs that Wal-Mart sells, ride very high on the "most commonly prescribed" and they are generic. This not only helped me, but it could in fact help people on Medicare PART-D ..when they hit the Doh-Nut Hole !!
THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY SCAM ..!
A Generic equivalent drug, has the same fundamental chemical make-up of the current named brand drug. Most drug classifications and chemistry, started out as a name brand and had a "rup-dee-doo whizbang marketing program" to sell to doctors, who in turn prescribed them to patients, for their aliment.
So I took each generic drug Rx's and looked it up in Wikipedia and compared the chemistry and results of clinical trials. In each case, the newer and vastly more expensive drug was protected by a patent. The new chemistry, was a slight variant of the old chemistry .. the clinical trials revealed slightly better "up take" (how fast it gets into your system) and slightly better negative side effects results and slightly better subjective opinion of patients when asked "how do you feel"...! In other words, the new drug is the same as the old drug ..but got a kick in the ass !
In each case of new vs. old ..the "clinic life scale", that is, degree of effectiveness over the term of the use of the drug, showed no deviation. That means, once the generic drug gets into your system. it works just as well as the new drug !!
Bottom Line
I was paying $87.00/mo on the original retiree drug plan plus $5.00 for each 90 day refill or $5.20/mo. That is a total of $92.50/mo. Going it alone costs ..$67.00/mo ...! I am $25.50/mo BETTER OFF .. for the equivalent medications..
You may not have the same experience I did. But is does pay to ask your GP for generic drugs or a drug that "clinically, does the same thing" as the name brand or TV advertised drug. The pharmaceutical companies in collaboration with your trusted GP are conspiring to "rip you off" in the name of "good health" ..!
