| mrstickball said: Sam - I think they do pay full price. Of course, we now have the wide, wonderful world of generic prescriptions, which are rapidly driving down costs. What used to cost $50 per 30 day supply now costs $5. Free market economics  |
Are you kidding me? Prescription drug costs are still out of control and rise much more than inflation year after year. Only recently have they started to slow down by a minimal degree but still rise much faster than inflation.
http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?id=352&parentID=68&imID=1
Several factors have contributed to this growth in spending on pharmaceuticals, including:
- Increased utilization and demand for prescription drugs - From 1994 to 2004, the number of prescriptions purchased in the United States increased 68%, [4] while the population only grew 12%. [5]
- Price increases - Retail prescription prices have increased on average 8.3% annually between 1994 and 2004, [6] much faster than the average inflation rate of 2.5%. [7] These prices include, in some cases, those of newer, higher-priced brand name drugs that have replaced older, less expensive drugs, and also the impact of movement from brand name drugs to their generic equivalents.
- Marketing to Consumers and Health Care Providers - Pharmaceutical manufacturers make substantial investments on marketing to consumers and physicians, which may influence consumer demand and physician prescribing practices. [8] Furthermore, the most heavily advertised products tend to be newer, more expensive drugs. This results in overall increases in spending. [9]
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
