How is this legal?

[ZombieHunter]

So I am inbetween health insurance, one month without it....and I needed a prescription filled, well Walgreens wanted $116 for 10 of my prescription, Then out of nowhere my friend whos parents own Windsor Park Pharmacy said I should go there, as they dont screw you, well long story short I got 30 of my script for $14.33!!! That means walgreens is marking up drugs 700%, please someone inform me how that is legal? Price fixing much? The pharmacist at windsor stated my script cost $4 per 30 at his cost, and walgreens is assured to get it even cheaper than that, how is this not price fixing? Who gave them the right to grossly profit off other peoples sickness? Serious question, I understand capitalism, but if you are ok with people being charged 700% markup on something that costs pennies per pill you are sick in the head.

And no Windsor park does not subsidize anything, they just dont believe in profiting off of others misfortune, and guess what, they still profited $10 on my script alone, $10 profit off $4 is an amazing ROI, how is that not enough for mega corp Walgreens?

 

[beast1989]

Was this a friendly discount since you know them? On the bright side you now know where to go to get your meds when you are in a time like this and I also think that the pharmacy has earned your business even when you get the insurance back.

 

[HiredHand]

It'll be cheaper when everyone has to have health insurance.

 

[ZombieHunter]

NO Friendly discount, everyone gets the same treatment, this was just straight up honesty, Pharmacist said he felt bad even making $10 off my $4 prescription, absolutely they earned my business, but the fact of the matter remains, why is walgreens allowed to markup pharmaceuticals made in INDIA 700%? That is just plain unethical.

 

[caojyn]

it's that way with everything, iphone $150 to build $600 to buy. granted a phone is not necessary

 

[SMS]

Why shouldn't they be able to charge what they want? You were free to shop around and get your meds from another pharmacy and you did. Everyone else has the same option, but most choose to be lazy and go to the nearest big box drug store.

Price "fixing" is not one pharmacy chain charging a large mark up for their product....price fixing would be all, or a majority of, pharmacy chains agreeing with each other to a similar mark up.

 

[caojyn]

in soviet america price fixes you

 

[KOPBET]

Walgreens has to pay for all those competitor stores they bought and shut down somehow.

But I'm not seeing how anything they charge would be close to illegal.

 

[Lurker66]

Anytime i can do business with local or in state business i will. Its not always cheaper though.

 

[RKM]

Whoa....made in India? Was the script you had at Walgreens generic? Was it made in India? Or is the script you got cheaply from India generic?

I was buying my Nexium through a Canadian pharmacy when I had no insurance (this was about 4 years ago). On their website they listed the Nexium as generic. I bought this script for about a year and a half. At first this "generic" nexium came from West Germany, then it started coming from India. I noticed the "generic" Nexium from India wasn't working for me. I called a buddy of mine that is a pharmacist and explained what was going on. He informed me that there was no generic Nexium, and if anything came from India the product was iffy. They have no way of verifying the ingredients. The generic from India was a fraction of the cost of real Nexium here in the US.

Not saying your script isn't any good, just going by what my pharmacist friend told me.