Medicare Could Have Saved $3.6B on Generic Drugs
Not just generics.Ever get a coupon from a drug manufacturer that drops your copay from hundreds of dollars to $10 or $20?  Ever wonder why?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 official price.  So they simply set the official price at some huge figure and rake in huge bucks from the largest buyer, Medicare.Then they negotiate with the for profit insurance companies and subsidize the copays so that nobody complains to their congress person.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.