Good Stuff From the Grapevine

    “On Monday night (July 22), Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo..... three thousand percent!

    So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so.  But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves.  For example, if you had to buy a  prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only  cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20.  What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

    At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.”

    I thought I’d check this out, (this is Will writing again) so I went to the Costco site, (www.costco.com) where you can look up any drug, and get it's on-line price.  It says that the in-store prices are consistent with  the on-line prices.  I was amazed!  The generic drug I bought recently for $72 per 100 for at a chain pharmacy, was 19.95 at Costco-online!

    I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in.   Also, I do not own Costco stock in my personal accounts, nor have I bought it for clients in my managed accounts—although perhaps I should consider it.

Who ‘da thunk it?

    That the best golfer in the world would be black,  the most popular rapper in the world would be white, the tallest player in the NBA would be Chinese, that the French would be accusing Americans of being arrogant, and that the Germans actually would not want to go to war.    What’s this world coming to, anyway??