Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs
Not just generics.<p>Ever get a coupon from a drug manufacturer that drops your copay from hundreds of dollars to $10 or $20?  Ever wonder why?<p>It’s because Medicare gets an automatic discount (I think 20% these days but I’m no longer in the biz) from the manufacturer’s <i>official</i> price.  So they simply set the official price at some huge figure and rake in huge bucks from the largest buyer, Medicare.<p>Then they negotiate with the for profit insurance companies and subsidize the copays so that nobody complains to their congress person.<p>It’s a huge rip off.  Medicare should be paying a discount to the median price actually paid on the open market.  But apparent nobody has an incentive to fix this.