The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices

Re:The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices by svskeptic on Thursday March 30, 2017 @12:25PM (#13996743)

"roughly what the wholesale price is plus a very small markup" .. is not my experience. I just had a pharmacist friend show this to me.

Blink charged the customer $10 for generic Lipitor (atorvastatin) 20mg, 30 pills. And reimbursed the pharmacy $4.90. Hence keeping > 50% of what the customer paid. As per the pharmacist, he would be happy to fill the prescription in cash for $7.50, lowering the price for consumer and making him more margin.

These are real numbers. Blink is in fact contributing to increasing the price for consumers, while being yet another middleman in the process.

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Re:The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices by jjmorrison on Friday March 31, 2017 @12:16AM (#14001131)

Just to provide more info - for a given pharmacy, Atorvastatin 20mg is $.0629 per pill, so $1.887 at cost. For most pharmacies the real cost is going the pharmacist filling the rx. An insurance company would probably reimburse <$5 and may or may not just make that the copay. $10 is way higher than pharmacies would charge for generic lipitor.

Also claiming: Avg. retail: $132.52 You save: 96%

Is the complete OPPOSITE of transparency. $132.52 might be a realistic price for branded Lipitor, but that's not at all what is being sold here.

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