America’s health care is totally screwed up, Part Ten Gazillion: in many
cases, the medicines your doctor prescribes are cheaper than the co-pay
your health insurance charges, which means that if you just buy the
meds instead of charging them to insurance, you save money.
Which is terrible, but what’s worse is that many states have laws that
make it illegal for the pharmacist to volunteer this information unless
you ask (the insurance companies’ benefits mangers keep the profits from
this arrangement, and they’ve successfully lobbied for gag rules that
keep pharmacists from subverting it).
So remember: every time you bring an Rx to the pharmacy, ask whether you’d save money by paying cash.
Also remember: the US health insurance industry is not your friend and
should be put to death and replaced by a single-payer system that will
remove the profit motive from health care.
