Michael

For the last 10 years, I've been using the VA for my medical needs and have been getting my drugs (brand and generic) for a $9 co-pay. I had Medicare Part A & B for 5 years but still used the VA since I liked the doctors there and didn't want to go out doctor hunting to try to find a doctor that I felt comfortable with.

At the beginning of the year I decided that due to my age, I should find a doctor on the private market and decided to take out a Part D prescription drug plan. Before I chose a plan, I was going to check the prices of my drugs at drugstore.com but they no longer sell prescription drugs so I went to the social security web site and chose an inexpensive plan ($25 per month) that covered only generic drugs 100% for up to $2,500 per year through Walgreens, Target, and Costco. As I was looking at the plan, it claimed that my drugs (4) would cost many thousands of dollars annually which didn't seem to make sense since I had previously checked some of the prices at drugstore.com and I thought that I remember them being quite inexpensive. Anyway I was confused and just signed up for the plan.

I still haven't found a private doctor and haven't used the drug plan but recently I started looking at web sites to determine the price of drugs. The following web site compared prices at different pharmacies (including mine) and the retail prices were pretty expensive but most had either coupons or a small annual fee to reduce the cost 80% or more.

http://www.goodrx.com/simvastatin?gc....0&qty-custom=

Then I started wondering which price my prescription drug plan would use to determine my maximum benefit. Although the 4 drugs currently cost less than the maximum annual benefit at retail (about $2,000 annually), I wondered if I would get any value for my money by purchasing the prescription drug plan since when I went to this web site, the total annual cost of my drugs was $360 annually without membership and free shipping and my prescription drug plan cost $300 annually and if the drugs were purchased at a non participating pharmacy, there would be a $8 co-pay per prescription for a 30 day supply ($384 annually for the 4 drugs).

http://www.healthwarehouse.com/simva...tml?ref=goodrx

Now I'm confused since the government is supposed to subsidized insurance companies at 75% of the cost of the drugs which means their cost should be about $80 annually for my drugs (probably less since insurance companies probably are billed less than consumers for drugs). So now I am wondering if I am just lining the pockets of insurance companies and getting very little benefit.

bilbos92

I commend you on your investigative prowess..... I think you've done what a lot of people don't.....they just assume they are getting a "deal".

I feel its more likely than anything else....

but it also means that somewhere, someone isn't getting that 80% off and paying full whack....and most likely without insurance, think there is no other option

Michael

What also bothers me is that the Part D prescription drug plan was a republican plan (Bush 2003) that was opposed by the democrats since it would cost the government too much money (about $50 billion per year) with little benefit to the consumer. It appears that the democrats were right and we are just wasting money to support insurance companies.

Talk about a pork barrel project and this has to be the biggest.

Instead the government could have setup something similar to the VA drug program for seniors and probably made money instead of paying about $50 billion per year.

Michael

Not only does it appear that the insurance companies want to line their pockets with government subsidies but they appear to want to line their pocket big. If you sign up for prescription Part D after you turn 65 and didn't have another prescription drug plan (in my case I had the VA plan), the premium for the drug plan increase by 1% per month after your reach age 65.

So in my case, the premium would have been $40 per month instead of $25 or $500 per year instead of $300 since I didn't sign up until 60 months after I turned 65 and it appears I would have been really screwed if I didn't have the VA plan.

Boiler: This was what I was talking about in the other thread. The democrats are trying to cut waste and fix the mess that the republicans created but the republicans keep road blocking their attempts since ideologically they believe in the free market system which doesn't work for health care and think that everything the government does is bad (probably only because the programs that the republicans passed were very ill conceived). The cost of the republican passed prescription drug plan is about 8% of the Medicare budget and to me, that should probably be hacked to save the money. Hacking this program and setting up as government prescription drug plan similar to the VA plan would likely provide as good or better drug benefits to seniors then currently exists and pay for about half of health care reform which insures about 45 million people. It seems that the republicans would rather add a couple hundred dollar per month to senior's premiums for Medicare and give them a prescription drug program that is fairly useless but cost a fortune than to provide the same price Medicare and drug prescription by fixing the program to reduce costs.

Michael

There was a post several weeks ago about someone that moved from New Jersey to someplace in the South and her prescription costs increased from a couple hundred dollars per month to significantly above $1,000 per month and the poster warned people about that. If the drug prices changed like that, I suspect that in one area the pharmacies play games with coupons and the other area doesn't and just gives everyone the discounted price.