Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/23/civica-rx.html
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Nice to know that Big Pharma’s obscene profits will finally go to the insurance industry where they belong.
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They suddenly are realizing that we’re serious about single payer universal Healthcare and are done with their bullshit.
I’ve stopped several medications for the last few years because I’m fucking done fighting with insurance every goddamn time I get a refill.
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I was taking something for six months last year, and when I got home, I started throwing up. It went on for two months, and after going to tye emergency ward tyey finally realized tge problem. So instead of the "cheap* pill every day, I get an IV every six months, the nurse telling me each time it was thousands of dollars. The doctor had to get permission from the givernment to switch, explaining the need.
I haven’t thrown up since, and finally I’m putting on some weight.
This was the pill that keeps my incurable rare disease in check.
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Of course they really mean “inexpensive generics,” rather than “cheap generics,” which might suggest a lower quality. 
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Once again, I remind that one can buy “cheap” generics from Canadian pharmacies by mail. I currently buy one that costs me close to 1/4 what the co-pay would cost with my insurance; 48 vs 178 bucks. YMMV but it’s worth check out prices from a couple of Canadian websites.
BTW if you’re worried about “foreign produced generics”, I checked the generics that my insurance mail order pharmacy shipped me and they are also “foreign”.
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This surprises me. Maybe their spend on pharma is separate from their overall spend when they calculate out the amount they are allowed to charge gouge their customers for in premiums, copays, and deductibles?
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Wow, I was worried there for a moment.
[note sadly the sarcasm]
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Wow. The irony of them being sick of being gouged is nice and thick.
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one of the details of the cyberpunk future most people forget is that megacorps are constantly at war with each other, humans being little more than fodder for the petty squabbles of giants bent on getting bigger
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Welcome to BoingBoing, and strong first post!
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Read the book “Bottle of Lies”. Lowering the quality of a lot of today’s generic drugs would be difficult. They’re already crap. And yes, they’re supposed to be “bio-equivilent” but it’s been demonstrated time and time again that many aren’t even close.
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It’s illegal to import schedule II controlled substances into the USA. That’s what I have a script for, but I also don’t want to pay $3000 a month for it.
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thanks, though i’ve been here for a while and lost access to my original account after deleting my twitter, which really kinda takes us back to my original point
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Generic asthma meds, total shit, the real McCoy is like a breath of fresh air, the way it was meant to be. BTW: Pun intended…
@dustoid: after deleting my twitter,
Dang, I like that.
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Shifting profits.
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As (ahem) a former FDA person (in devices, not drugs however), I completely agree. Seems to me I remember the official required legal bio-equivalence was something like within only 25%. I do wonder how many are really even that good. OTOH, I’m on a bunch of drugs, most of which have been replaced over the years with generics, and I’ve never had a problem, thankfully.
ETA: missing word
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INSULIN. I say again. INSULIN.
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I seriously have no idea what to make of this. Like, big pharma has monopolistic powers, so in order to combat that insurance companies are going to grant themselves a monopoly. Insurance companies basically get to choose what drugs get sold so they are going to choose their own.
Right now if an insurance company wants to charge you premiums that are justified by having to spend $1000 on a pill you might need they need to actually pay $1000 for that pill. If they make the pill then the pill is free to them (it probably costs 10 cents or something). So now they can say the pill costs $1000, charge you a premium to cover that $1000 cost and not even pay the $1000? Maybe they’ll make it $800 so they can say it’s cheaper than big pharma’s version?
There is absolutely no way in hell health insurance companies should be able to make drugs and sell them to themselves (effectively) and charge people for the service of self dealing. This is a monopoly squared. Toxic profit-seeking interaction between big pharma and insurance is how America got these prices in the first place. This will just remove all the friction.
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BTW if you’re worried about “foreign produced generics”, I checked the generics that my insurance mail order pharmacy shipped me and they are also “foreign”.
Yeah, the 
generics I see are often made by Apotex, who make drugs in Bangalore, India and have attracted, um, negative regulatory attention for doing so. Their highly litigious founder died, along with his wife, under very strange circumstances which fuel a lot of gossip in Toronto.
I’m resisting a digression on the topic of paying for any kind of “risk management”.
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