Thars Gold In Them Thar Drugs.

How much did you pay for your last prescription? Hmm. Okay then, how much did it cost your insurance company to pay for your prescription and what does that mean to your premium? Ahah. That's another story isn't it? Well a big part of that cost is because brand name drugs often have no generic option, even long after the patent has run out. How come, you ask? Because the brand name drug maker often pays the generic makers not to bring their generic to market. Look, Bayer that makes Cipro, which is a good antibiotic, paid Barr Labs $400 million to delay it's marketing of a generic. And they claim it's all legal and above board. Not only that but several federal appeals courts agreed. So while other industries can't do that without getting hit with an antitrust suit because of things like price-fixing and anti-competitive practices, the drug companies have been doing it for years and smiling all the way to the bank. Let's face it, $400 million for doing nothing ain't a bad days work, or lack thereof. Suppose Wrangler got together with all the other manufacturers of jeans and set the price of their wrangler jeans about 50% higher and all sell them thar jeans for the same high price, or suppose everybody decided that wrangler would be the only jeans you could buy. You and your kids would have a fit, partly because they didn't like the fit, but they'd be stuck. Well Wrangler can't do that because of antitrust laws. So how come drug companies can do it? I dunno. But now an appeals court has said they can't do that. Could be that the Supreme Court will have to decide. It's anybody's guess what they'll do.