How significant is this? Medical costs chew up a good chunk of older peoples incomes. Is this drug discounting going to lead to a shift in the pricing sturcture for drugs in the US or not? I had a thread a while ago that asked why the rest of the world pays (usually) much less for drugs than we do, and the answer was essentially because national entities can negotiate better prices than HMOs, and the US basically pays for drug R & D or the rest of the world.
I have avoided Wal-Mart due to reasons commonly expressed on this board, and in other places, but this move may bring me around to shopping at Wal-Mart again, not because I need Rx drugs, but finally someone is able to stand up to Big Drugs.
BTW Astro are you trying to give a mod a heart attack? Don’t you know by now that the Mods will jump on your quote with the delete button, while pointing out that you posted a copyrighted article. Well I guess if they do have a heart attack they can get cheap medication.
I don’t think Wal-Mart is standing up to “big drugs.” The drugs you can get for 4 dollars are generics that are usually pretty cheap anyhow, and they are doing it to lure business for the pricier drugs. I beleive they are selling the drugs at near cost or s light loss in the hopes that most people, who only want to pick up their scripts in one place, will transfer all their scripts to wal-mart and thus Wal-Mart will make money on the eleventy-billion scripts that are not on their $4 formulary.
I think the nexy logical step is to add in-store clinics. There are so many things that could be done easily and cheaply such as diagnosing and treating minor infections, checking blood pressure and chloresterol, etc. I hate Wal-Mart (mostly becuase they are dirty, messy, poorly lit, and don’t carry things I like), but that might bring me around.
No. If ONLY that was true. The amount of money drug companies spend on R&D is less than either the amount they spend on marketing or the amount they pocket in profits. It’s an attrocity. Worst part is that the republicans pushed the medicare drug bill through Congress specifically with the clause forbidding government from negotiating on price. It was nothing short of embezzlement on a profoundly massive scale.
Anyway, generics never cost a lot of money. At issue are the patented medicines. Walmart’s move is unlikely to do much to reduce their cost, especially, as others pointed out, if its true goal is to actually make money on those patented drugs. (Ie, it won’t actively promote generics when they can be used as substitutes.)
Btw, this is totally off-topic, but the reason that walmart’s workers get low wages is because they’re too lazy to apply for jobs elsewhere. They think “I want to work, I’ll just go apply to walmart.” That lets walmart pay what it does.
They’re working on that.
Are you being serious or kidding?
Cite? I thought I read in Time magazine, earlier this year, that the reason why drugs are so expensive is because the US is essentially paying for the drug company’s R&D.
I was also stunned. I checked some of the financials for the Big Pharma and Biotech companies. He is right. The R&D is often smaller than either the profits or the selling expenses. Take a look at the financial summary from Amgen You’ll notice that in 2005 Amgen sold $12 billion in drugs. They spent $2.3 billion on R&D and $2.8 billion on “selling general and administrative.” Total profits were $3.7 billion.
They are not spending quite as much as you’d think on R&D. On the other hand, the US is basically paying for the development costs because the $12 billion in sales heavily comes from the US. $9.9 billion in domestic sales versus $2.1 billion in foreign sales. In effect, the high US prices and volume on the big blockbusters is what drives the company. Without the strangeness of the US market, these companies would be very different.
As a New Yorker, this sure makes me appreciate those politicians who are protecting me from those Wal-mart bastards.
While they aren’t yet in Walmarts, Minute Clinic](QUOTE=whiterabbit) is in grocery stores and pharmacies. I don’t think Walmart would be that far of a stretch.
I’ve been reading about grocery stores in the Chicago area toying with the idea of cheap medical clinics staffed by nurses & nurse practitioners (who are able to write prescriptions) and a doctor comes around once or twice a week to check over the records. They’d be able to handle colds, flus, vaccinations, minor scrapes and that sort of thing.
This article is a bit dated and from Minneapolis but it gives you the general idea.