Pharmacist explains why our healthcare medication prices are insane:
The cancer medicine Imatinib costs him $7 to buy. They add $10, so you're out the door for $17. However, when Medicare pays for this drug, it costs the govt $2,400. This drug was filled 250,000 times in 1 year costing Medicare $600 million
“If every one of those scripts was filled at our pharmacy instead of through Medicare, it would've cost $4 million. That means that we are $596 million cheaper than the insurance. That's crazy.”
“So why are they paying this much for that medication? Well, insurance companies pay a middleman, the pharmacy benefits manager, and that person decides how much that medication's gonna cost”
3 Pharmacy Benefits Managers control over 90% of all prescription pricing in America. Pharmaceutical companies bought all 3 Pharmacy Benefits Managers
They have rigged the system. Now Big Pharma is able to set their own prices.