$1,800 for brand Prometrium against $12 to $50 for the generic with a discount card points at formulary design more than raw manufacturing capacity, which is where the piece places most of the blame. Moving these products onto preferred generic tiers might close a chunk of that 44% prescription-filling gap without touching supply at all.
That's exactly the distinction I was hoping people would catch. The $1,800 vs. $12-50 gap only makes sense as a formulary story. If it were really about supply, brand and generic would both be scarce. They're not.
The 44% fill gap is what should bother people most. It's a tier placement decision, one someone made and someone can reverse, sitting on top of a drug that already exists and already works.
Thank you for flagging this huge issue. The problem was so bad for me (including terrible side effects from switching Estrogen patch/gel brands three months in a row) that I gave up and went off HRT.
You didn't quit because HRT doesn't work. You quit because different brands made your body feel different ways. That wasn't you failing. That was the medicine not being the same.
How many of us stopped something that was actually helping, just because it got too hard to keep going?
$1,800 for brand Prometrium against $12 to $50 for the generic with a discount card points at formulary design more than raw manufacturing capacity, which is where the piece places most of the blame. Moving these products onto preferred generic tiers might close a chunk of that 44% prescription-filling gap without touching supply at all.
That's exactly the distinction I was hoping people would catch. The $1,800 vs. $12-50 gap only makes sense as a formulary story. If it were really about supply, brand and generic would both be scarce. They're not.
The 44% fill gap is what should bother people most. It's a tier placement decision, one someone made and someone can reverse, sitting on top of a drug that already exists and already works.
Thank you for flagging this huge issue. The problem was so bad for me (including terrible side effects from switching Estrogen patch/gel brands three months in a row) that I gave up and went off HRT.
You didn't quit because HRT doesn't work. You quit because different brands made your body feel different ways. That wasn't you failing. That was the medicine not being the same.
How many of us stopped something that was actually helping, just because it got too hard to keep going?