Amazing how much lifesaving meds are overpriced in the US

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Did you look at your cost if you were under the Janssen CarePath Savings Program or Janssen Select programs?


90 supply for $240.

Always go to the manufacturer's website to see if they have savings programs.
 
I'll see the first doc in April and I am tempted to ask why she gave me a 12-month prescription, but probably not. I don't want to piss off the gorgeous doc who has helped me so much in saving me from myself. I'll just keep in mind that she writes the scripts, but I do the shopping, and maybe I should ask more questions.
This is really frustrating. I assume your doc is generally taking good care of you, but the fact that another doc had to correct her mistake and that it's up to you to then take the correct action - I don't get it. I'm disappointed with medical care everywhere these days. I'm looking for a good functional medicine/integrative medicine doc here. Sigh.
 
My Cardiologist scheduled me for another leg angiogram and sents, and I love this procedure for what it does for 750-year-old coot, restoring blood flow and removing leg pains. She wanted to replace my 81 mg aspirin with 2.5 mg Xarelto twice a day tho. She even gave me a 30-day sample supply along with a prescription I could renew for a year. "OK, doc, thanks" I started shopping...


"Rivaroxaban was patented in 2007 and approved for medical use in the United States in 2011.[9] In the United States, it will not be available as a generic medication until 2024.[10][11] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.[12] In 2020, it was the 86th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 8 million prescriptions." Great stuff I guess. It had better be for $1,000 a month!

GoodRX.com says I can buy it locally in a 90-day supply to save on costs for a little over $3,000. Healthwarehouse.com offered it to me for $1,757 which gets it down to $585 a month. My part D cost was a little lower, but not much. So I found Liferxpharmacy.com which seems to checkout fine as a respectable and fully certified mail-order pharmacy. It seems that while Rivaroxaban is patented by one owner, it licenses other firms to manufacture it under certain terms. Natco in India does, along with many other drugs shipped to US pharmacies like Tamiflu, but they have an agreement to sell it "in India only" for so much less. Liferxpharmacy buys it in India and ships it to me in a 168-count package for $188 = $67 a month!


This box was actually made by Bayer in India, marked "for sale in India only," but that was fine by me. You can pay more at Liferxpharmacy to get it made in Turkey, Canada, or the UK, but I didn't see any need.

Now I know that mail orders from India can go awry so to make sure that I had plenty, I decided to stock up. "In the United States, it will not be available as a generic medication until 2024," but in India it's available. I got 180 for $33 = $11 a month!


It's the very same lifesaving med made by a reputable company that commonly supplies US pharmacies, but I used a fully certified pharmacy to work around the contracts and rules. Help me out here, tho: $11 a month vs $585 a month = a 98% savings, right?

Now that I had spent $221 on a five-month supply, my next appointment was with a senior Cardiologist at the same office who tells me that I only needed to take the first 30-day supply I was given but could now go back to aspirin. Oh great. I'll see the first doc in April and I am tempted to ask why she gave me a 12-month prescription, but probably not. I don't want to piss off the gorgeous doc who has helped me so much in saving me from myself. I'll just keep in mind that she writes the scripts, but I do the shopping, and maybe I should ask more questions.
I am also using a similar drug. Of course here in Italy it is free thanks to our excellent public health system.
But even if you purchase it without a therapeutic plan, it costs much less than in US, albeit quite more than in India.
Here the official not-discounted prices here: head 2017 - Starbene
 
Did you look at your cost if you were under the Janssen CarePath Savings Program or Janssen Select programs?


90 supply for $240.

Always go to the manufacturer's website to see if they have savings programs.
Yes, I registered for that, but it's not available until April, and I didn't seem to qualify other programs I looked at. Maybe I didn't explore that enough, but after finding the Canadian pharmacy, I didn't bother.
 
It's not just drugs.

I was once in a bad bicycle accident that resulted in several painful surgeries and months of recovery. It was paid for by insurance, except, of course, for my significant copay. We did not pay a lot of attention to the paper work--we just paid our portion of the total charges.

The accident was clearly caused by the teenager who hit me, with the fault so clear that his family's insurance company settled quickly. When my attorney gave me the settlement check, he held back a portion until he got a quote from my health insurance on their actual costs for the surgeries, since they were eligible for reimbursement. When he heard from them, he gave me all of the money he had held back. The insurance company had not paid a dime for my surgeries. All the actual costs had been covered by my copays.
Ok, this is amazing! When you know you have crap for coverage. "All the actual costs had been covered by my copays."
 
I am also using a similar drug. Of course here in Italy it is free thanks to our excellent public health system.
But even if you purchase it without a therapeutic plan, it costs much less than in US, albeit quite more than in India.
Here the official not-discounted prices here: head 2017 - Starbene
Aside from cost differences, nothing is free - you are paying taxes for your “free” public health system.
 
Aside from cost differences, nothing is free - you are paying taxes for your “free” public health system.
Better to get something in return for paying taxes than giving our money to mega corporations.

Lobbyists paid politicians to make the rule that Medicare cannot negotiate drug prices.
There are now over 1700 registered lobbyists for big pharma buying elections and bribing politicians.
 
Aside from cost differences, nothing is free - you are paying taxes for your “free” public health system.
Out of pocket cost is out of pocket cost whether a premium to a private company or a tax to a government entity. We Americans still pay more for relatively less.
 
Aside from cost differences, nothing is free - you are paying taxes for your “free” public health system.
Including taxes in the cost, Americans pay roughly twice as much for healthcare as Europeans.
 
Including taxes in the cost, Americans pay roughly twice as much for healthcare as Europeans.
And living in a "border community" to a country with government healthcare, the number of foreigners paying cash for health procedures to be done here is absolutely massive...
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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