The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: To-Whose-Benefit? on October 11, 2018, 02:20:41 am
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NBC news
Dartunorro Clark and Brenda Breslauer / Oct.10.2018 / 3:31 PM EDT / Updated 5:22 PM EDT
[excerpt]
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-signs-bills-lifting-pharmacist-gag-orders-drug-prices-n918721 (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-signs-bills-lifting-pharmacist-gag-orders-drug-prices-n918721)
President Donald Trump signed two bills at the White House on Wednesday aimed at lowering pharmaceutical drug prices by promoting greater disclosure in drug pricing.
The two bills the president signed — the Know the Lowest Price Act and the Patients' Right to Know Drug Prices Act — are meant to prevent "gag clauses" in agreements between pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen who administer prescription drug programs for insurance companies, which pharmacists say kept them from disclosing cheaper drug options to consumers.
"It's way out of whack. It's way too high," Trump said of the current state of drug pricing at the signing. "You look at prices in our country and for the exact same drug in other countries, it's much lower — made in the same plant by the same company — and I said, 'What's going on?'"
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More Background (published before POTUS signed the bill, but more in depth)
No More Secrets: Congress Bans Pharmacist ‘Gag Orders’ On Drug Prices
[excerpt]
https://khn.org/news/no-more-secrets-congress-bans-pharmacist-gag-orders-on-drug-prices/
For years, most pharmacists couldn’t give customers even a clue about an easy way to save money on prescription drugs. But the restraints are coming off.
When the cash price for a prescription is less than what you would pay using your insurance plan, pharmacists will no longer have to keep that a secret.
President Donald Trump was scheduled to sign two bills Wednesday that ban “gag order†clauses in contracts between pharmacies and insurance companies or pharmacy benefit managers — those firms that negotiate prices for employers and insurers with drugstores and drugmakers. Such provisions prohibit pharmacists from telling customers when they can save money by paying the pharmacy’s lower cash price instead of the price negotiated by their insurance plan.
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I recently had a DO suggest a non-prescription "supplement," for a monthly price.
The monthly price far exceeds prices for similar products.
While she may be okay, I sort of resent her attempt to effectively have me sign up on the down leg of her multi-level marketing income stream.
B-6 and B-9 (folic acid) and B-12