Allergy meds have gone down in price finally, but not too long ago they were not cheap and not OTC. Clariton used to be about $30 a pill or more for example. The company also did everything in it's power to retain it's patent and keep out any competition through very dubious "legal" means to do so. Such as "reformulating" to a "daytime" Clariton which they did nothing to the actual formula. They just stated they did to lock out the generics from selling for a longer time.
Also, the major drug costs aren't for allergy medication either. It's mental health medications. You have no idea how much that crap costs and people that need to take them for various conditions have to take them for LIFE every day. It's not a seasonal thing. That and most people are on a "cocktail" of meds for mental health. Mainly because 99% of the mental health issues in this country are pure guesses. You go to one doc he thinks you are just bi-polar 2. Another thinks you have borderline tendancies. Another thinks you have schizophrenia. The list goes on and on.
That does not even get into the costs of ancillary treatments beyond meds such as psychiatry or treatments such as electric shock therapy. And yes, while most people don't believe it, electric shock therapy to the brain is still in use today.
Regular visits to a medical practitioner should be cheap. However, most hospitals and doctors do whatever they can to rack up the bill so they get more money. That and the overhead for dealing with insurance does add greatly to the costs. Read this for some of the higher margin procedures they typically push for.
http://www.x-raytechnicianschools.o...ur-doctor-makes-a-killing-on-prescribing-you/
Many things you do not need. For example I had to have surgery recently on my shoulder. I knew something was wrong and had been for years. I went through several X-rays, MRI's, and CAT scans which all showed nothing wrong but inflammation. Finally I had one surgeon do a simple mechanical motion test of having me stick my arm behind my back and try to push his hand away. I couldn't do it with my right arm at all. He concluded from a simple test that my labrum was torn. Sure as shit, when they did the surgery, they realized it was not only torn, but completely sheared off which is why they weren't noticing anything wrong in the MRI's and CAT scans because it wasn't they fact they were seeing something damaged that was there to see. They were completely missing the fact that there was NOTHING to see because it was gone. The point is, they had no problem constantly giving me more image scans and shooting me full of cortozone shots because it treated the symptoms and not the problem. It made them more money in the long run. Yah, my story is an anecdote but it is not an outlier or a one time case. This crap happens more often than not and is endemic of the situations as a whole.
I do applaud these people for trying to do something that is more cost effective instead of doing whatever they can to make a buck. However, excuse me for being skeptical as hell because I have a feeling somewhere, someone is going to try to make up some cash on the backend.
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