Maybe I should learn it so I can get my drugs cheaper?
A long time ago I made a decision to stick with a job that provided excellent benefits but maybe not the highest salary. Thats ok - life is full of choices and I made the one that kept me home so I could watch Thing1 and Thing2 grow up. Maybe we would have a bigger house. Maybe I would have gotten wiped out then the dot-coms imploded. Who knows? Who cares.
Our family uses a lot of prescription medication. The drug benefits my employer provides make it very affordable. I'm not sure what we'd do it I had to pay retail for them. Thing1 has medication that would cost over $1500.00 a month. We pay way less.
So now here is the (scummy) state of Illinois the Govener wants to import drugs from Canada for Illinois citizens so that they can save money. The wife brought up a interesting point - what happens if American drug companies stop exporting so much to Canada?
So why do drugs cost so much? There are lots of reasons but a few stick out.
- Research. It costs. Alot. So the companies have to recover their investment.
- FDA trials. Years and years of trials at the drugmakers expense. Adds up pretty quick.
- Advertising. From the Super Bowl to hundreds of free lunches provided to doctors everyday there is tremondous competition to get physicans to prescribe their drugs.
I think the real solution to high drug costs is to address these. Number 1 would be tough but the other two might be do-able.
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