Patients Are Deserting Prescription Drugs At Counter

It now costs employers an average of $13,000 to provide health coverage to employees and their families with the latest round of price hikes from insurance companies.  Higher copays are now routinely moved down onto employees are having an impact on the ability of drug companies to simply name their price for brand name as well as generic drugs.  The phenomenon is called Deserted Drugs.

We all know drug companies have been milking the American drug market and consumers for all it is worth for years. Old people are regularly shook down at the Canadian border for drug buying out of the country.  Now we have working people paying higher co pays for their prescription drugs and they are paying attention to the costs.  We also have a lot of folks who have lost their jobs and having to cough up the money or forgo their meds.

The Wall Street Journal today has a very good article on this latest noteworthy trend.  MORE BALK AT COST OF PRESCRIPTIONS Deserted Drugs. Nearly 10% of prescriptions for branded drugs and 5% of generics are being left at the pharmacy counter due to the high costs for medications.  It appears the recession has finally hit drug manufacturers and their never ending price increases for both branded and generic drugs when folks have to actually dig into their limited funds to shell out for drugs prescribed by their medical providers.  The laws of supply and demand are now coming into play at the pharmacy county.

Patents are running out on a lot of branded drugs and BIG PHARMA is now rushing to buy up all the generic supply they can to keep prices high for consumers.  Next trip to Costco or Walmart take a look where the generic over the counter stuff is made.  India is a big supplier as are other countries in the generic business.  Yet if you go to Canada to buy drugs you have to get a Canadian Doc to prescribe the meds all courtesy of BIG PHARMA and the strangle hold they have on US consumers.  The "free market" is not permitted by law in the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

As more and more baby boomers move into retirement they will surely have a profound impact on the delivery of medical services and the pharmaceutical industry.  Drug desertion at the pharmacy counter may be the first blush of this wave of discontent with drug pricing. 

Perhaps the next wave of note will be a decrease in the ads we see on television for drugs to treat all the ailments all those smiling people in the ads suggest we might have.