Last time I looked at a dark web drug site I saw them selling fucking anxiety and bipolar drugs, at really good rates too but you had to buy in bulk
And you don’t know if that’s what you’re actually getting, or if it’s fentanyl mixed with rat poison.
Much of the tine they’re Indian pharmaceuticals which are easier to obtain, but still highly faked. There are reaction agent results for all the major medications, but sometimes the binders do interfere with them even if legitimate.
Typically these sellers operate through trust and reputation, and only a fool doesn’t test their drugs before consuming
Do they make test kits for prescription psych meds? My friend has had pretty great experiences on the dark net with recreational drugs, but occasionally it’s not what it claims to be. That could be disastrous with psych meds…
Somebody makes them, I’m sure. Whether or not they’re available for your Average Joe to purchase… no idea
So usually not unless you have a chem student roommate, at that point they can directly test and see if the compounds they expect to be there are there, but that’s not feasible, so what you would do is just check to make sure it doesnt have anything that we can test for, like fentanyl, opioids, amphetamines, if you test using a normal test kit and don’t find anything harmful, that’s usually a good sign.
Again though yeah, there is risk involved but some people are willing to take that risk to get what they need
The problem with that is that by not having what it’s supposed to have, some people’s lives can be completely derailed. That’s why I don’t think it’s worth the risk. They wouldn’t know they’re not getting what they need until it was far too late. I have an old friend who has been on prescription medication since high school. He has ended up in prison literally every single time he has gone off his meds. He goes into an extreme manic mode where he disconnects from reality and thinks he’s Jesus, or one of his many other delusions. In his mind that means he can do no wrong and he starts doing all sorts of wrong, which leads to his arrest and imprisonment within a few weeks of him going off his meds. It’s pretty crazy how fast he deteriorates.
you did not save any money for the insurance because that discount is negotiated. they don’t actually pay the $40. They contract with the drug supplier to raise their “full” price and then discount it for the insurance customers so they look like the insurance is providing value.
So it’s more like a tax for not having insurance then.
I would call it more a racket than a tax but thats just semantics.
This. Insurance is incentivised to make everything as expensive as possible.
Because half the country votes for a party that explicitly says this is a good way to run things, and the other half votes for a party that says it isn’t great, but we shouldn’t really do anything meaningful about it.
Until there is mass “you are all assholes and we demand a more representative electoral system” demonstrations, nothing will change.
Readers may note that this applies to basically every problem in the US right now
This is a bipartisan issue, thanks to corporations.
Corruption. The word you’re looking for is corruption.
Exactly correct!
Neither party wants to fix it. Corporations be damned.
Make it make sense.
The price was bullshit to begin with. The cream probably sells over the counter for about $2.50 in most other countries, so OP still ended up paying 10x the price.
Sort of like hospital bills now. My wife went to the E.R. 2 months ago. They billed the insurance $4K. The insurance said nope and paid $220. We paid $40.
Yeah, it makes sense if you think of it like Skyrim Horse Armour except with life saving drugs. They’ll take as much money from you as they think they can get away with.
Yup. This price is at least partially distorted by the fact that she can’t just go buy the cream without getting a prescription first. That means tight control over distribution, meaning huge barriers to entry and being forced to play ball with this insurance system when someone does enter.
There’s no way for the market to create that simple channel from this medicine to those who need it at the natural market price which is quite low.
All these elements that aren’t naturally required, but are required by law to be part of the deal, cause the price to get weird.
Its a tax scheme.
The pharmacy claims this medication is worth $275, insurance covers $40, and then they get as much as they can out of the patient while claiming the rest as a loss they can write off on their taxes.
US healthcare is stupid.
It’s also a scheme for the pharmacies to get as much as they can from the insurance companies.
You should really be replacing
stupidwith “evil”That’s fucking evil and the cunts should be held accountable for their evil
But yous won’t cos you’re pussies
Nope. It’s consequential. They need to raise their shareholder value in any way that’s legal, even if it’s not morally right. If they won’t do that, they’d get into trouble. For corporations tax loopholes are there to be exploited.
Making those loopholes illegal is what will fix this. Then you can call it good craftsmanship by politicians. Right now you can barley call it shoddy.
I’d say US healthcare is toxic, and behaves despicably toward those in its care. It’s also inefficient and often counterproductive.
All of this is a result of stupidity and evil, coming both from outside the industry, as well as perpetually generated by the already-ill structure of the industry.
It warps the minds of those who join it, as customers, providers, and regulators. We’re all like software devs loyal to the terrible architecture of a bad codebase due to having to adapt to it to get anything done.
Fucked up systems fuck people up.
It’s not the pharmacies that set the prices. At least, not really. The pharmacy pays near the listed “cash-price” for the drug from the wholesaler, who buys from the manufacturer, so the pharmacy can’t really afford to charge much less than they do for many drugs.
And the price the patient sees after insurance is decided based on the insurance or pharmacy benefit manager who deals with prescription benefits for the insurance.
Pharmacies are also contractually prevented from charging less to a cash-paying patient than what they charge to the insurance companies, so you start getting weirdness with coupon cards to work around that.
That’s not how tax write off losses work.
You misspelled tax ‘scam’…
That just sounds like fraud with extra steps.
It looks like the pharmacies do not get the tax write offs, if any. It’s the drug manufacturers who get to double dip by charging insurers for whatever they’re willing to cover, and then write off the rest causing tax payers to foot the bill.
Regardless, I agree with the article that there needs to be legislation that both bans these type of “shell game” programs, and capping the price of medications. And for what it’s worth, I don’t care if that means companies don’t make as much money. They’ll still make money, and the drugs do not actually cost that much to make.
It’s called “extortion.”
It’s insane to me that healthcare looks like this in the US, I mean I live in an objectively weaker economy and my healthcare is vastly better in terms of cost, availability and has no hard ties to employment.
That is crazy messed up. My gut feel is that it’s again down to the corporate shareholder problem, where infinite growth is demanded. It’s defies belief that this hasn’t been fixed, and really makes me think that overall we’re losing the war of greed vs humanity overall.
A brief history verifies your gut feeling.
My gut feel is that it’s again down to the corporate shareholder problem, where infinite growth is demanded. It’s defies belief that this hasn’t been fixed, and really makes me think that overall we’re losing the war of greed vs humanity overall.
It’s also maintained as a tool to punish labor for stepping out of line. Look at recent labor disputes in the States. The first thing that is done by the company is to shut off healthcare access.
You’re absolutely right. Tie health insurance to a job and you get people to never leave.
I don’t even bother with health care because of shit like this. I’m not gonna participate in a fucking guessing game of how much shit should cost. I go to the eye doctor because I have bad vision but that’s it. Even then half the time my insurance refuses to cover my contacts until I called them to argue about it. It’s so infuriating. I’m fortunate to be healthy otherwise. I don’t know how people that need more help deal with it.
I had a guy argue with me once that US is better than other countries because we have choice in health insurance and I said most people have healthcare tied to their employer who chooses what options they have and this dude argued we ultimately have the choice because we choose where to work.
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America is not a country that cares for the well-being of its citizens; it is a collection of businesses
I’ve never wanted to be American. But I’m glad I’m not American. I live in a totally shit country with a crap corrupt government, but everyday I am thankful, because, at least I don’t live in the US. Sadly I don’t live in the “best country in the world”.
“Who’s the shit-hole country now?”
Hey buddy, USA citizen here, our government is crap and corrupt too.
Yeah I don’t want a gate keep. We can all have crap governments.
Although in the US it’s not corruption it’s just lobbying.
I don’t think it’s anything near Russia.
Well, you can argue that oligarchs in power are not corrup because they just have conflict of interests, but this is not huge difference
I think the gap between our level of corruption and Russian political corruption is getting smaller every year.
Sounds like you had a new guy checking you out who didn’t know about the discounts or didn’t care. The experienced pharmacist stepped in and applied the correct discount codes.
It’s just like with your taxes, you’re more than welcome to overpay on your taxes if you don’t know the discounts available to you.
In a just world the system would just apply all the applicable discounts without your input, but I guess that’s the free market in action. One pharmacy will lose your business for not applying the available discounts while another will gain your business for doing so. It’s truly fucked up.
There is a over the counter name brand for eczema that is only around $10
Probably already tried all the OTCs, that’s why the got something prescribed. $10 is nuts too, generic hydrocortisone over the counter is like $1.50.
I had the same experience as OP. Pharmacist told me I needed specific one. Not the generic. But go on and tell me more
It sounds like wherever you live has very different pharmacy laws from where I live.
‘Probably’ sounds like you chimed in with an unnecessary comment when you don’t know about the situation
Sounds like you did the same thing on a thread about pharmacy in the United States ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s designed to not make sense.
I 100% get my prescriptions without insurance and just use the local pharmacy discount rate they offer. My insurance is employer provided aimed at people who make a lot more money than the employer actually pays. Such is US healthcare
GoodRx or something like it was used. Welcome to the man in the middle scam that makes people think they’re getting a good deal when in reality, they pay for insurance but insurance makes it so costly to use their insurance that people have to pay for it out of pocket or with an HSA but can’t apply the cost to their annual deductible. This is a win win for insurance companies and patients get screwed. I hate the US healthcare system so much from spending time interacting with it from the perspective of work and personally.
with great freedom, comes a great medical bill :P
With great freedom to die in ditch, comes a great medical bill
Wait until you see how much the monthly cost is for a family these days if you’re going through the exchange.
The other fun game is tech doesn’t offer it anymore. I’m in the job hunt and 7 of 10 jobs make you go out of pocket, the next two give you and obscene monthly responsibility so they can say they offer it, and the 10th job has 5000 applicants.
It’s not sustainable.
The reason all this bullshit exists is because the insurance companies CEOs seem to be heavily invested in PBMs. Companies aren’t actually paying their full copay in many places - they have PBMs that basically get a coupon back from the pharma companies effectively meaning PBM’s and Pharma corps are teaming up to rob you while the insurance company looks the other way.
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pharmacy companies shouldn’t be able to charge insurance different rates nor should coupons be allowed. Pharmaceuticals should have 1 listed price all payers pay similar to french laws.
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copays for pharmaceuticals need to be capped at like 50% of pill manufacturing cost not the final sale price. Insurance companies need to be incentivized to bring prices down by paying more for marked up items.
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Fuck insurance companies. They need to die.
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