There is one thing we also need to take into consideration that hasn't been mentioned. The pharmasutical companies are continually doing reasarch trying to develop new drugs all the time & new ways of dispensing of them (not all meds are pills...patches, med to disolve in your mouth, etc). Also, the pharmasutical companies do have programs for people who have low income & don't have any med insurance. (I know for 6 months I was able to use that program for my fentynal narcotic I use continually for my migraines until they reviewed my income tax). When I was looking into it for that med, I found other companies have similar programs for the meds they produce.

I know the cost of meds for me is shocking when I actually see the numbers. I use 20 patches a month & the actual cost of the med is about $1200.00 for the 20....that is $60.00/patch. Fortunately I have only had to pay $900.00/month. Then we look at the yearly cost even at my lower price comes out to be $10,800.00/year. That is more than my parents paid for their house & they had 30 years to pay for it.

Realizing that others have paid high prices for the pharmsutical company to develope the med I am using doesn't help me like the fact that I am paying a high price. but fentynal for me has helped me get my life back & not constantly having migraines without any let up until this was developed....& the fact that all I have to do is change a patch every 3 days without having to constantly be taking pills that never worked anyway,

My daughters friend has just graduated with her pharmasutical degree with plans of working for a pharmasutical company & work on developing new cancer meds.....this is really what is going on behind the scene.....most of that high cost doesn't go to the pharmacy that is selling it, but the pharmasutical company that developed it.

Debbie