WithPotentialSavingsLikeThisLeftUnplucked
NoWonderWeNeedMoreRevenueVille
It's the Friday afternoon before tonight's big football game in downtown Lotusland and I'm pretty sure a whole lotta folks are starting to breathe a little easier now that they can look at this....
Why are they breathing easier?
Well, because, as we pointed out earlier in the week, it is not entirely certain that the new magic carpet atop BC Place (you know, the bolt of cloth that allegedly cost only a few hundred million dollars or so) will actually keep the rain out.
But that, and the Devil's Horned skyline that goes with it, is not what I want to speak about today.
Instead, I want to discuss the fact that we in this province are paying way, way to much for 'generic' drugs.
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Now, what are 'generic' drugs?
Well, the first thing to understand is that they are NOT cheap-knock-offs.
And they are NOT crummy 'no-frills' versions of the real thing.
Instead, they are the real real thing.
However.....
Because they are no longer on patent, generic drugs can be bought and sold for close to what they actually cost to make, with a reasonable profit as part of the deal, rather than some made-up number that is often thousands of times larger than Orson Wells' waist-size during those not-so-salad days when he started swigging down all the generic wine that Ernest and Julio Gallo could pump out of the massive cauldrons hidden underneath either the basement of a fertilizer factory in Modesto or Randy Hearst's castle in San Simeon.
Or some such thing.
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So.
What's my real point here?
Well, as Don Cayo pointed out very adroitly in the VSun yesterday, a 75% off sale on something that is ridiculously over-priced to start with (by literally hundreds of multiples in this case) is still a ridiculous price to pay.
And the fact that the members of the Gordon Campbell Legacy government (ie. the same members that will, allegedly, be celebrating the hundreds of millions we spent to build their friends the magic carpet atop BC Place, at no cost to said friends, this evening) have locked us into just such a ridiculous 'bargain' that is literally costing us millions upon millions of dollars every year for no good reason at all.
Mr. Cayo demonstrates this point very well with the following example, based on the experience of the Land where Conchords apparently sometimes fly away from:
....(I)n the words of Michael Law of the Centre of Health Services and Policy Research at UBC, "Even at 25 per cent, our generic drug prices are way too high by international standards."
Law offers one particularly dramatic example - the widely used cholesterol-lowering statins such as Lipitor and its many imitators.
When Lipitor's patent expired last year and generic companies were able to produce copies of the drug, I estimated that the B.C. government alone could save $24 million a year by buying cheaper substitutes - even at the high price we pay in this province. At Ontario's price, obviously, we'd save much more.
But Law has looked at a drug called Simvastatin, in the same class as Lipitor, in Ontario and New Zealand. In the former, a pill costs about 62 cents; in the latter, three cents....
So.
Why is it, once again that the Gordon Campbell Legacists are threatening us with doom because we refuse to allow them (ie. the Legacists who will be smiling for the cameras under the magic carpet this evening) to raise more money by stripping the skin off of the backs of the folks in this province that can least afford to give them more of it?
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I use the skin metaphor here with purpose because 'having skin in the game' is a term that a certain Lotuslandian media personality, whom I am almost certain will be under the magic carpet tonight with all other 'Friends Of The Legacists' just loves to use it whenever possible when he goes off on 'But how are we going to pay for schools' if we don't raise revenues rant.
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6 comments:
Two years ago, I became ill while visiting my in-laws in Phoenix. I went to a clinic and my problem was diagnosed incorrectly, but that is another story. I was prescribed three generic drugs. One was an antibiotic (30), one was a pain killer (36) and the last was something to counter the nausea that could be caused by the antibiotic and pain killers (36). I was very apprehensive about the cost. I went to the pharmacy in a Fry’s grocery store. I put in the prescriptions and asked how much they would be. I was told $12.00, which I assumed this was for each one. When I went to pick up the drugs I went through a lengthy explanation from the pharmacist about what problems I could have with each drug. When that was over I paid the bill. Each drug was $4.00 for a total of $12.00. Our dispensing fees would that much!
Thanks Rob--
For clarity, I left the dispensing fees out of it here. But there would appear to be a bit of revenue enhancing 'fat' that there as well.
Rob,
I lived in Phoenix for 9 years.
I take a blood pressure reduction medication called Lisinopril.
I usually bought it in Nogales, Mexico.
One month I ran out. I went to Doc in a Box - $125. I month's prescription - $120.
As soon as I could, I took the bus to Nogales, AZ and walked over the line.
I bought a year's supply. Bus ticket plus year's supply $195.
I have some real serious doubts about your story.
Annon
You may have all the serious doubts you want. Why would I lie?
The clinic cost me $115.00 to be told I had a kidney infection when in fact I had pulled a back muscle. The three generic prescriptions cost me $12.00 total. They are not heart drugs, just an antibiotic, a pain killer (generic Tylenol 3) and a prescription gravol.
Anon-Above--
Perhaps some misunderstanding?
I don't think Rob was trying to suggest that we should have pure market-priced generics with no Pharmacare.
Rather, I think he was just pointing out that they, the generics can be cheap.
Here's the thing....I reckon that if we really put the squeeze on the makers we could actually get them down lower than true open market, very much like we are reasonably good at doing (or at least used to be good at doing) with patents, which is why so many elderly folks from the States have trekked up here to get them and why some of Pharma's best in-pocket elected officials down south suddenly started spouting off about how Pharma's stuff sold in Canada might not be 'safe' a while back.
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I don't think this is a rich-versus-poor issue or anything similar. More likely incompetence or not wanting to start a brawl with pharmacies as happened when Ontario cracked down on expensive generics.
The single biggest winner from lower priced generics would be the province itself, given that it pays the cost of prescriptions for anyone on (or recently on) social assistance or disability, most seniors, and people with expensive prescription needs relative to income. The self-employed (and permatemps) would also win, as would insurers covering employee benefits. None of these groups are on the outs with the BC Libs.
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