by PharmacyChecker.com | Feb 10, 2012 | Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
A new and portable strategy for saving money on prescription drugs has just hit the market with the LowestMed app from LowestMed.com. Our research finds that the most substantial savings consumers can expect are for generic medications, but far less so when it comes to expensive brand named drugs.
To help American consumers “Find the lowest price… fast” at a local chain pharmacy, LowestMed has created a free smartphone application that uses the current location of your phone to find the nearest pharmacy with the lowest price on a prescription drug that you need. According to the Washington Post, “LowestMed also comes with a free discount card, which can further reduce the price of a medication by between 10 and 85 percent.”
Testing out this new savings strategy, we find that a 30-day supply of Lisinopril 10mg can cost anywhere from $10.00 (Target) to $36.63 (CVS) – the app not only helps you find the $26.63 savings – 73% but also to map the location for you.
While savings like those on Lisinopril are great, many consumers may need to turn to verified international pharmacies when shopping for big brand names. Thirty tablets of Plavix 75mg, for example, cost $197.64 at the cheapest bricks and mortar pharmacy on LowestMeds.com, $205.10 at the most expensive. Saving $7.46 per month is nice, but saving $153.10 is not only much better but necessary for some Americans who could simply cannot afford the U.S. price! Plavix costs just $52 for a month supply at the lowest priced international pharmacy in the PharmacyChecker.com Verification program – a savings of 74%!
Tagged with: app, brand-name, bricks and mortar, CVS, discount card, free discount card, generic, international p, Lisinopril, LowestMed.org, Plavix, smartphone, Target, United States, Washington Post
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Feb 3, 2012 | Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
During a recent campaign appearance in front of a Tea Party crowd, as reported by ABC News, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a mother and her sick son that high drug costs are fair because they are determined by free market forces. It appears that Mr. Santorum doesn’t understand the crisis of prescription drug prices and that the market is failing to price prescription drugs within reach for 10s of millions of Americans.
According to ABC News, “Santorum told a large Tea Party crowd here that he sympathized with the boy’s case, but he also believed in the marketplace,” and that companies wouldn’t be making the life-saving drugs if they didn’t believe they would turn a profit doing so. The former senator from Pennsylvania seemed to be lecturing the American people when he said: “People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad…but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.” (more…)
Tagged with: ABC News, Abilify, brand name drugs, free market, generic drugs, high drug costs, iPad, life-saving drugs, medicaid, Medicare, Pennsylvania, pharmacy, prescription medication, Rick Santorum, schizophrenia, Tea Party, United States, Veteran's benefits
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jan 11, 2012 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies
Today we’d like to feature content from our ally RxRights.org, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting access to safe and affordable personal drug importation through verified online pharmacies:
Lee Graczyk, RxRights lead organizer, felt compelled to respond to a recent Washington Post editorial about the problem of Internet piracy and the legislation that has been crafted to address it. Though we have not had much luck getting the Post to publish Lee’s responses in the past, he
continues to try, and wanted to share his latest effort.
The Post editorial board was on target in stating that the Stop Online Piracy Act’s (SOPA) definition of a rogue site is dangerously overbroad and could threaten legitimate Web sites [“A fair block on Internet piracy” editorial, Jan. 3.] Its explanation, however, could go further to discuss the implications SOPA would have on Americans who import their medications from legitimate pharmacies.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans–90,000 people in Florida alone–rely on ordering vital prescription medications from safe, licensed Canadian and other international pharmacies, mostly due to the exorbitant costs of prescription drugs in the U.S. If passed, SOPA would take away Americans’ access to these pharmacies. This is because the bill inappropriately groups together real pharmacies–licensed, legitimate pharmacies that require a doctor’s prescription and sell brand-name medications–and the rogues that sell everything from diluted or counterfeit medicine to narcotics without a prescription.
As legislators continue to move forward with SOPA, as well as its Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act, they should recognize this is not only an Internet infrastructure and security matter, but also a grave health concern.
This article can also be found on RxRights.org. PharmacyChecker.com is an RxRights coalition member.
Tagged with: Canada, Internet, PROTECT IP Act, rogue pharmacies, Rx Rights coalition, RxRights, SOPA, Stop Online Pri, United States, Washington Post