Prescriptions to display drug cost
- Thread starter DampDog
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Soldato
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My asthma nurse had me trying a bunch of different medications because the one i was on was supposedly expensive. Had a loads of problems when i switched to flutiform, eventually settled on a lower dose of the medication (seretide) i was using to start with.
How many genuinely ill people would feel guilty? I don't care how much something costs - I am not going to feel guilty if what I take is going to keep me alive.
Those that whine about the pathetic £8.20 cost will be able to get appreciation on the real cost.
Rather than feel guilty I would actually be rather relieved that I am finally getting something back for all the money I have paid in (as someone who pretty much never visits doctors I am one of the few not actually diretly benefiting)
Course, while I think it is a fine idea, I don't see it achieving anything financially.
Soldato
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i think its a good idea. id be interested to see how much the pharmaceutical companies are ripping every one off by
I'm not sure which camp I fall into, while I think people should have some awareness and appreciate the cost of their medication. I'm not convinced this is the way to go about it. What next, break a leg and get an invoice telling you what it would have cost you to get your treatment privately. Same for when you gran is in hospital with pneumonia for 2-3 weeks?
I do think there is a case of billing people directly for the use/abuse of the NHS. Role up drunk on a Fri/Sat night and want a bed to sleep it off. No problem, £500+ a night
This. I've no problem with it but will probably only have an impact on a minority.
I have with my partner. She was given a drug that wasn't on the NICE list. 2 boxes cost the same as a new hatchback. The meds per day was close to 30 pills. Her overall costs in the last few months had to be close to 5 figures per month including home care, scans etc etc. I honestly don't mean to sound selfish or uppity but apart from the shock of the expensive pills, I wasn't really thinking too hard about the cost. Worked it out after but then I had more time after.
apparantly we are not allowed to do this now. our pharmacist service advised that this is something potentially being cracked down on by counter fraud departments. If they are elligible to pay for a script then they must pay even if it is more expensive than a private script if it is being issued by an NHS contractor. This particularly has become relevant when viagra came off patent as a private script for viagra is now much cheaper than an NHS script when it used to be very much the other way round.
I actually wouldn't mind that either. 'Wow, it would have cost me HOW MUCH privately?! Thank god for the NHS' rather than see it as a guilt trip I would see it as a way of educating people into appreciating what we have.
Same goes for when people are outraged that their mother/friend/whatever was stuck on a waiting list for a year to get the operation they needed and how it is a disgrace. Well, take a look at the bill and remember you could have gone and avoided the massive wait by going private if you were willing to pay for it.
My wife is American and a Diabetic. Her insulin was costing $350 a MONTH and that was after the cost was covered by the full coverage insurance she had via employment. So, yeah, I think it is time people got a wake up call into how good we have it.
Exactly. The whole Welfare State is a glorified pyramid/ponzi scheme, which relies on a large working population paying enough tax & NI to care for those old, infirm and 'less fortunate'. I'm fed up of the attitude of the older generation that there's somehow a 'pot' with their name on it, conveniently forgetting that their parents and grandparents all of a sudden got medical treatment and other benefits having never paid any NI or 'stamp' in their lives...
Many old and vulnerable people already feel like a burden. This is only going to exacerbate those feelings.
It's not the cost to manufacture the drugs that make them expensive anyway it's the RND so I doubt reusing medicine even if it were practical would be cost effective.
most things probably cost a few pence to make.
maybe the government should require anyone who sells something to put the manufacturing cost on it so we can see how ripped off we are by the actual sale price to us.
it would be a real eye opener walking around a supermarket.
it's not how good we have it in your wife's case, it's a case of how ****'d up the U.S. Healthcare system isBet they don't display it on prescriptions which cost less than the NHS charge, like my asthma inhaler
NHS will pay what pharma charges for it. And pharma can charge whatever it wants for it.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-develop-drugs-rich-westerners-not-poor.shtml
Man of Honour
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Most Pharma companies spend more on advertising and marketing than they do on R&D. The biggest spending twice as much on advertising than R&D.
So yeah, R&D isn't the reason why it's so expensive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28212223?
No half decent pharmacist would allow you to pay £8.20 for something worth less than that available off the shelf.
However, you'd be surprised at the amount of people who will still insist on taking the branded products even when theirs an unbranded one available for a fraction of the cost.