Who pays for prescriptions?

And even with the new senior drug discount cards, we can't get a break. They already raised the price on many of the drugs. But if the info here is correct, at least we're moving in the right direction.

This is offtopic but I'll add it here anyway: you can get rebates of a lot of drugs by doing a google search on "drugname rebate" without the quotes.

DE

It may be because of an odd co-incedence.

Even as co-payments for those that have prescription help goes up, there seems some continued increased in the plans that offer some help for the first time.

Of course, this is speaking strictly impressionistically, I have no statistical evidence or link of it.

And it would seem hard to believe that the few companies adding it would offset both the increased co-payments and the jobs losts (people that had drug coverage and now, even if working, may not).

RogerNC

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This puts an increasing burden on employers that offer group insurance, as the employer is the one who pays the difference between the co-pay and the sun charged.

I've noticed that some employers offer a tailor-to-fit-your needs plan. For instance, single men can opt out of maternity coverage, and some employees can choose to raise their deductibles when they exist.

I've been one who thinks we have asked too much of the employer insurance plans. IMO, this has been one of the factors that has contributed to the increasing high cost of medical care.

I also did not favor Medicare prescription coverage.

Medicare introduced a benefit in the early 90's called "Catastrophic Coverage" for an added cost, if memory serves, of about $45/mo. Included in that was some respite for care-givers. I took advantage of that with my Mother- 2 hours of a CNT for 10 days. But the AARP was deluged with complaints, so it was dropped.

Angeline
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Each day I take a pill called Levoxyl (.137 mcg.) My co-pay at Eckerd's (before I switched to United Health Care this month) was $15.00 for a thirty day supply. I can buy the same prescription at the Costco pharmacy for $12.19 and that's the actual prescription cost with no co-pay. That's $2.81 less than my co-pay amount at Eckerd's. With United my co-pay is now ten dollars at Eckerd's.

How can the folks on Medicare and those uninsured afford such high costs and why is the mark-up so high at the major drug stores?

I read an article a few months back about how the major pharmacy companies have up to one-thousand % M/U on many prescriptions. I believe it to be true and it's just not right. Many people have to make the choice on which they will buy, food or medication.