For Retired, Disabled or Low-Income Individuals, Prescription Drugs Just Got More Costly
TL;DR
Rise & Hedge isn’t only dedicated to helping you improve your investments. As part of the personal finance spectrum, we also want to help you alleviate household budget stress. For essential products like prescription drugs, which are about to get more expensive for millions of Americans, this website can help offset those rising costs.
On Monday, the country celebrated Martin Luther King Day. But if you live in Alabama or Mississippi, you also had a chance to celebrate the lingering bigotry and anti-American sentiment of Robert E. Lee Day, which recognizes the Confederate general who led forces in an attempt to destroy our union.
This seems fitting as Monday was also Trump’s first day back in office, and among a litany of executive orders, he pardoned more than 1,500 rioters who took place in the Jan. 6 insurrection. We’re not diving into treasonous acts today, or explaining why people who violently attacked Capitol police officers and attempted to overthrow a presidential election should be serving full sentences. Rereading that sentence, we’re unsure why that even needs to be explained.
Instead, we’re going to focus on another executive order Trump signed on Day 1. This one, which ended a Medicare program that capped copays for all generic medications at $2. That’s bad news for the average Medicare participant who spends around $2,700 per year on prescription drugs through Medicare Part D.
In his executive order, which rescinded Biden’s, Trump said the former president’s directive was “deeply unpopular,” “illegal” and “radical,” which we suspect means he didn’t inquire with real Americans as much as he did with spineless pharmaceutical lobbyists looking to squeeze as much profit as they can out of aging, impoverished or disabled citizens.
No matter which side of the aisle you’re on, that effort by the prior administration was a worthy cause, helping retirees on fixed income and people with disabilities who are unable to work lower their prescription drug costs.
Now, it’s gone on the first day of the new president’s administration. Trump’s executive order will adversely impact an estimated 120 million Americans by increasing their prescription drug costs by as much as 4,300%. But where one billionaire falls short in his responsibility to help everyday Americans, another has stepped up in an effort to address runaway drug prices.
Mark Cuban Is Disrupting Big Pharma
Last year, we told you about an app that can help you combat inflation. In that case, it was high food costs. Today, we’re continuing that theme with a platform that’s sole purpose is to help offset elevated prescription drug prices.
Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs offers hundreds of common and often live-saving medications at the lowest possible prices. Importantly, the platform only accepts insurance from a few companies (because like the pharmaceutical industry, Cuban likely recognizes that the insurance industry is also a racket, albeit a necessary one in this country).
However, because it embraces a pharmacy model that allows it to sell directly to patients online, Cost Plus Drugs eliminates middlemen and only charges a 15% markup on its own wholesale costs for medication. It also does something the wider industry doesn’t: It discloses ALL pricing information upfront, allowing patients to easily compare their costs versus, for example, what they would pay through Medicare Part D.
Note: Prescriptions filled through Cost Plug Drugs don’t count towards Medicare Part D deductibles and are considered out-of-pocket expenses.
It’s a noble undertaking for a man who recognizes that a net worth in excess of $1 billion is probably enough to survive these days (unlike this literal f*****g Nazi), and that Americans deserve affordable access to the medications they need. To better understand the company’s mission, you can read an open letter penned by Cuban himself.
How It Works
Because Cost Plus Drugs negotiates directly with pharmaceutical companies for affordable access to their generic drugs, it eliminates pharmacy benefit managers (a.k.a. middlemen negotiators) whose only objective is increasing costs for both pharmacies and consumers at the benefit of the manufacturer.
Once drugs are made available, the website shows you the wholesale cost, the cost with the 15% markup, a set pharmacy service fee and a shipping fee. Then, when patients determine that the platform offers the medication they need (dozens of categories are available, from antiviral and diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis and high cholesterol), they sign up for an account then reach out to their doctor or provider with instructions provided by Cost Plus Drugs in order to receive their prescriptions.
Once the company receives the Rx from your doctor, users are notified to checkout. Medications are delivered to their door in just a few days. That’s it. So if you or someone you care about are currently taking medication and could use some price relief, it very well may be worth your time. Because for the next four years, it’s already evident that those costs will only be going up for millions of Americans.
