A Word to the Wise…

The new Medicare Prescription Drug Bill promises to help those “in need” gain relief from escalating prescription drug prices. However, there are more than a few problems facing those who rushed such a bill to market. Do we really need a Medicare Discount Card? What will consumers save? Discount cards for prescription drugs have been around for years. Many pharmacy discount card distributors charge a monthly and/or yearly fee to join a plan (not an insurance plan mind you). In many cases, the card you present at the pharmacy counter does nothing more than save you a few pennies. In fact, if you did not present a discount card at the counter and are a cash paying customer, you could more than likely receive the same discount for paying cash as you would if you were presenting a pharmacy discount card.

How about those popular prescription discount cards you see advertised on television? Do you really get what you pay for? No! What you get is a card and a perceived savings, which does nothing more than provide that extra added security at the pharmacy checkout counter.

The Medicare Discount Card is nothing more than that extra-added security that won’t do too much in the short term prior to the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan coming into effect in 2006. It’s a transparent attempt to deliver something to those on Medicare in interim until those in government can figure out exactly how the new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan will operate. Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or fall somewhere in between, your tax dollars will more than likely be overspent and misspent in this newfangled Medicare venture.

Under the present “plan” the pharmaceutical companies still make their money, drug distributors and suppliers (the middlemen) still get their cut and major retail pharmacies will still reap the benefits as nothing is really going to change. Mom and pop pharmacy owners will suffer the most. Those who can’t survive as a neighborhood corner drugstore will be eliminated and replaced with a three-letter pharmacy.

Medicare has stated that it will release sensitive information related to drug pricing. How many decades has Medicare been around? How long has it been since anyone in this industry has offered full disclosure of wholesale pricing? Just what information will be released? Some pharmacies (the honest ones) make a few dollars on a brand name drug while those major chain (three-letter) pharmacies and pharmacies owned and operated by senior citizen organizations make a killing. Those same organizations lining up in Washington with the pretense of helping seniors have done nothing more than work against those members they proclaim to protect from big government.

Maybe they should have spent their multi-million dollar ad campaigns (espousing the benefits of buying generic drugs) on actually funding a generic drug buying program for those who are truly in need. With all of the money that has been spent to develop and advertise drugs we really don’t need (just how many versions of antihistamines and erectile dysfunction medications do we really need) to ad campaigns (which cost millions more) educating Americans on the cost savings benefits of buying generic drugs, to some of the most profound (and I’m kidding here) statements ever made concerning the sudden and immediate need for Americans to buy generic drugs, just what the heck is going on?

We grew up eating generic foods, we wash our face and hair with generic shampoos and we buy generic paper products such as toilet paper, napkins and bags like they’re going out of style!

That’s the point! Just when did this revelation of “buy generic” come about? One could assume that the “buy generic” campaign began when the bean counters in Washington woke up one morning and finally crunched the numbers. They tallied up what the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill (that’s what it is a bill!) and figured out that the best way for Medicare to save money was for the whole pill popping world to buy generic drugs whenever possible. The billions saved by Medicare could be impressive, however, how do we re-educate the whole pill-popping world to buy generic drugs? The pharmaceutical companies have spent so much time and money hammering brand name pills down everyone’s throat for so long that Medicare has to back-peddle and spend millions more re-educating everyone on the simple fact that every brand name drug (which has a generic counterpart) must be FDA approved and meet the same standards as the brand name drug before it can be sold in this country.

Pharmaceutical suppliers and distributors (the middlemen), will continue to control prices to us (the retailers), however, we as retailers can help Americans by taking a little profit by selling to the masses. We need to reach critical mass in order to stay open for business, plain and simple. RxCorps is for those on Medicare. You simply have to be on Medicare and pay as you go. To those in Washington, wake up! Americans are smart enough to smell a ruse and an expensive ruse at that!