A friend of mine emailed this to me tonight, and I've heard this before about Costco, and I wanted to share this here as I think it's great news for everyone who needs to buy medication and wants to save money:
Make sure you read to the end. You will be amazed.
Let's hear it for Costco! (This is just mind-boggling!)
Make sure you read all the way past the list of the
drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal
Washington , DC offices.
Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for
the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think
it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet.
We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the
active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in
past issues of Life Extension a significant percentage of drugs sold
in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries.
In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really
make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some
of the most popular drugs sold in America ...
Celebrex:100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%
Claritin:10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%
Keflex:250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%
Lipitor:20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%
Norvasc:10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%
Paxil:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%
Prevacid:30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136 %
Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%
Prozac:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%
Tenormin:50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%
=0 A
Vasotec:10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%
Xanax:1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%
Zestril:20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809%
Zithromax:600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%
Zocor:40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%
Zoloft:50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%
Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I
thought everyone should know about this.
It pays to shop around! This helps to solve the mystery
as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. On
Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in
Detroit , did a story on generic drug prices gouging by pharmacies. He
found in his investigation that some of these generic drugs were
marked up as much as 3,000% or more. So often we blame the drug companies for
the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case,
the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example if you
had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might
pay $100 for 100 pills.
The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the
generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are
saving $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100
generic pills may have only cost him $10!
At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr.
Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to
this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little
over their cost for the generic drugs.
I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any
drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are
consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you
one example from my own experience I had to use the drug Compazine which
helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.
I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60
pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought
100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could
have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.
I would like to mention, that although Costco is a
'membership' type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy
prescriptions there as it is a federally regulated substance. You just
tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will
let you in.