If you were to take a time machine and go back to 2006 and put a hundred bucks in a savings account with 5% annual interest, you’d have $147.50 in 2014. Not bad. But if your interest rate was tied to the annual price increases of brand name drugs you’d end up with…$202. And if for some crazy reason you just wanted to have the same purchasing power 8 years later, and tied your interest rate to inflation, you’d only end up with $125.
Clearly the increase of drug prices are out of line with the prices for everything else, and while the numbers figured above only take in to account brand name prices, generic prices are rising, too. On average, generics cost 5% more in 2014 than they did in 2013. That’s on average – some generic drug prices increased by 2,500 %!
But there’s good news on the way. Senators Sanders and Klobuchar are fighting for more affordable medication. Some more good news, at least for seniors, was released this past week. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration’s fiscal budget for 2016 calls for the government to negotiate prices for biologic and high-cost drugs for Medicare Part D. While, we’d like to see prices negotiated for all drugs, this can still represent huge savings for the government. Estimates suggest that 9.1% of national health spending could be on specialty drugs. That’s total health spending, not just drug spending.
We’re eager to see if the government will actually able to negotiate prices in 2016 – who knows how the budget will change or if Pharma will push to prevent negotiations. We’ll be keeping an eye on this and will certainly let you know.
In a great many cases, the pharmacy will DELAY informing you of the cost of a prescription. They will tell you to come back later, when they have more time. At one time, the were informing a patient that they must have a prescription for a price quote, even though that this was never necessary. They will always tell you to come back later for a price. Dealing with a pharmacy, without insurance on that drug, can be terrible and probably very expensive. Some pharmacies, years ago, would have a list of cost on the most popular drugs, on a sign. This is not the case any longer.
There are now, generic CHEAP drugs that have become very expensive with a tier 3 or 4. Prices were less than $10 for 90 pills are now well over $40 per 90 pills.along with a possible maintenance restriction such as a prior authorization, quantity limited or a step therapy.