This is a comment posted on the NY Times website below an article by a MD about the difficulties of getting a prescription filed:
"sbrooks OR 8 minutes ago
I switched from Copaxone (an MS drug that requires daily injections) to a generic. the generic and the Copaxone are chemically identical. The wholesale price of Copaxone is over $6,000 per month. But of course no body actually pays that much. The generic costs around $5,400 a month. Don't ask me why a generic drug that can be mass-produced costs that much. But the point is, no one could tell me how much the "wholesale" price of the generic was, even though my insurance company makes me pay 20% of the pharmacy's "wholesale" price. It turns out - after two or three hours of phone calls - that each pharmacy has negotiated a different "price" for the generic with the manufacturer, so there really isn't a "wholesale price." Meanwhile, the manufacturer provides a "deductible support" program under which they "pay" up to $9,000 of my deductible. Hum. And my insurance company, which has a $3,000 "universal" deductible, also has a $5,000 out of pocket maximum. So the end result is that the pharmacy pays the manufacturer about $5,400 a month for my drug; I pay the pharmacy $3,000 out of pocket - except that the drug company actually pays my out-of-pocket (does the pharmacy and the manufacturer just keep swapping checks?) - as well as 20% of the "wholesale price" for the drug, up to $5,000 total, except that the manufacturer also covers the 20% (more check swapping), at which point the insurance company takes over and covers 100% of the drug cost. Until next year....
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
