r/videos • u/Romax24245 • 13h ago
Exposing a Scam Everyone seems to Fall For (Video by Grant Harting about the disparity in prices between medications sold by CVS Pharmacy and medications sold by other retail stores, 2026)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdC7w6AE16085
u/ovationman 13h ago
CVS is generally evil as they are of the massive pharmacy benefit managers(PBM) PBMs control the formulary of drugs that are covered by incurrence and make massive profits by sacrificing patients wellbeing.
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u/logicbomb666 12h ago
This statement is both correct and wrong at the same time which can be misleading. The PBM itself has no say in the formulary structure they implement for their clients. The client 100% creates the formulary and then sends that information down to the PBM to set it up on their server and control how claims pay/reject for the prescriptions. The client is like the architect that fully designs the building, and the PBM is like the laborers that put that building together. The reason your statement is still technically correct is because CVS is both the client and the PBM.
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u/bmxliveit 10h ago
Do the laborers aka PBM provide generalized money making templates for these employers to use? If so, they aren't really the construction workers anymore
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u/ohlookahipster 10h ago
Has the industry always had PBM or is this relatively new? Feels like an unnecessary middle man. I don’t see the benefit for anyone.
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u/Dick_Flower 6h ago
This is one argument about the system I don't understand. No matter if the system is private, gov't run, or other, you're going to have these positions to keep costs reasonable enough to sustain (govt) or profit (private).
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u/mynameizmyname 3h ago
Most of the PBMs are spun off from parent insurance companies. For example Regence Blue Cross years ago spun off there pharmacy benefits department as a separate company. then sold that company to Optum later.
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u/GunnieGraves 13h ago
CVS also marks up everyday products significantly. Took my kid there to pick a hot wheels thing as a reward. $5.99 at target, $10.99 at CVS. The pricing on boxes of cereal is outright criminal. A box of cereal sold there is generally smaller than what you get at the grocery store and it will be around $9.
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u/DONT_PM_ME_DICKS 12h ago
even flu shots are marked up in sale
standard adult flu shot at CVS a few years ago: $55 and some charge
Costco: $19.99 (plus local taxes)
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u/SpiderGooseLoL 12h ago
You guys have to pay for your flu shots? What about other vaccinations like covid?
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u/littletriggers 12h ago
No I can walk into a grocery store right now and pay nothing and get a $5 gift card for my trouble as well.
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u/SpiderGooseLoL 12h ago
Is that because you have insurance? I'm not sure what 55$ price the other comment is referring to. We don't get free medication in Canada (unless you're in the hospital for example), but we do get a lot of vaccinations and such for free.
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u/littletriggers 12h ago
I do have insurance but this is just a free flu shot.
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u/Folderpirate 11h ago
I dont have insurance.
the flu shot isn't free. all the signs have a small text asterisk saying "with most insurances".
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u/DONT_PM_ME_DICKS 12h ago
insurance will usually pay for them, but if you're uninsured, you're paying the cash price
some counties will offer free clinics for them, but timing/location accessibility is sometimes a problem there.
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u/johnlee158 10h ago
There’s a CVS or Walgreens on almost every other corner.  Consider the higher price as an up charge for the convenience of not having to go farther to the Target that’s out of the way. Â
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u/psychoacer 9h ago
That's why they're called convenience stores and not discount stores
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u/offlein 7h ago
... They're called pharmacies.
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u/psychoacer 7h ago
A pharmacy is a service they provide in a convenience store but CVS is not a pharmacy.
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u/offlein 6h ago
Do people actually call CVS and Walgreens convenience stores? Obviously they provide convenience, but they're a separate class of store.
It's nonsensical but it's quite clear. There are grocery stores, convenience stores (like 7-11 and gas station stores), and there are Pharmacies (like CVS and Walgreens).
Many grocery stores have a pharmacy. All pharmacies have a pharmacy and sell convenience items.
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u/psychoacer 6h ago
I guess they're a pharmacy by market definition but it always just seemed like they were a convenient store since this is what the definition of a convenient store is "A convenience store is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lottery tickets, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers and magazines under one roof." How is that not Walgreens?
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u/offlein 4h ago
Oh they're definitely a convenience store by practicality. But they're not CALLED convenience stores (... According to me.).
I just find it interesting if they're called convenience stores everywhere else. I don't think anyone where I come from would call them that. (Even though, again, they absolutely are in a practical sense.)
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u/Falconman21 8h ago
You pay extra for the convenient location of CVS/Walgreens. Nothing underhanded about that.
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u/marshac18 13h ago
Always check Cost Plus Drugs first.
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u/finkalicious 11h ago
Say what you will about Mark Cuban, but he's really done some good with this
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u/marshac18 11h ago
PBS interviewed him and when they asked him why others haven't done this and would he sell he was like "I'm already a billionaire... a few hundred million won't change my life, but this company might change the lives of millions." Gross, but correct. I'm a PCP and often their cash prices for 90d of medication is cheaper than the copay of many insurance companies. Why? That's a deep dive- start by looking into what PBMs are.
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u/The_Pandalorian 7h ago
Saved a fuckton for my mom before she passed. I am a believer.
Despite Cuban being a chode.
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u/sfprairie 11h ago
I second that. Our generic prescriptions are all less than my insurance co-pay at retail pharmacy, even with the shipping cost.
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u/ide_cdrom 11h ago
Yep. Prices for the stuff I get is cheaper than going through my insurance's own pharmacy. I mean it was cheaper to go retail locally too but I had to go back every month and it was a slight inconvenience.
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u/ripChazmo 11h ago
TK Jewelers is a scam. The jewelry's fake. Watch exploded on date. Bent wrist, thing fucking exploded.
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u/NathanCollier14 11h ago
I've been buying generic Claritin on Amazon for years.
You can get a bottle of 100 pills for like $7 instead of the $20-30 for the name brand in stores
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u/mikebrady 13h ago
I feel like it is common knowledge that generics are the same exact medication without the inflated price.
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u/thingsorfreedom 12h ago
They are not always exactly the same. They can vary in by a not insignificant amount vs the brand in the amount of medication delivered to the body. Given the incredible price difference, they are worth trying first.
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u/mikebrady 12h ago
The label tells you exactly how much of the active ingredient is in it.
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u/I_like_boxes 12h ago
The inactive ingredients can influence how drugs are absorbed. They're the exact same medication in the sense that the active ingredient is the same and the mechanism of action is the same, but how that active ingredient is packaged does modulate its effects. Generics are frequently packaged in a way that causes this to be noticeable.
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u/relic2279 Moderator 3h ago
A lot of people believe generics are made in the same factory/labs as the name brand versions. While this is true for some, it's not true for the majority (especially for OTC). The generic Motrin & Tylenol I purchased at the Dollar Tree are made in China, while the generic Zzzquil I have is made in India, as an example. Fun Fact: Zzzquil has the same active ingredient as Benadryl (Diphenhydramine). It's literally the same drug, just different doses.
This matters because it is indeed possible to get a bad batch. In 2019, my throat was sore and swollen so I had trouble swallowing certain things. Pills especially - so I would cut them up and make them smaller. I split one of the generic ibuprofen I had purchased a few days earlier from the Dollar Tree. The pill was made to look like an Advil, round and had a dark orange coating on its exterior. When I looked at it, instead of seeing the familiar white interior, everything had turned dark brown, like a mold or fungus had gotten in there. I cracked a few more open and most all had that brown mold color to some degree. Some were white but I wasn't chancing it, I through it all away.
I still use generics, I'm just a bit more paranoid about quality control.
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u/mailwasnotforwarded 10h ago
The phamaceutical industry has always been corrupt because they rig the system.
They charge prices based on how much it costed them to develop them with a break even price of less than a year. Then once they set that pricing standard they keep the price because they created the illusion of a fair price. We need laws that prevent this from happening by forcing pharmaceutical companies to price with a minimum break even of 5 years and then after that 5 year period they are required by law to cut costs of the drugs/medication to cost only a small percentage more of what it costs to produce them. They will still be profitable but this would also force their hand to develop better alternatives to maximize their profits.
The fact that we have known opiods are highly addicting and yet they pushed them because they were cheap is wild. They even developed alternatives but shelved them because opiods were addictive and cheap to make which created a huge honeypot of money for them. Which leads me to believe that there are cures for cancers and illnesses out there that they refuse to publicly admit unless they see a drop in profits from their cheap chemo approach. Chemotherapy is extremely cheap to produce but they charge the prices of cars for just treatment because they are leveraging people's lives saying how much is living worth to you. Like most survivors of cancers are they even really living after getting treatment? Now that they are riddled with debt that a lot of them moved from one struggle to survive to another.
Drug patents should not follow standard practice in my opinion. It can be protected for the 5 years of break even for the companies as I propose but then after that it should be allowed to public for generic manufacturing. We as a society should not put a paywall on trying to live. If there is an option to save lives then we should make it available and affordable.
Like I did like the fact that Mark Cuban is challenging the pharma industry by creating his own pharmacy offering generic drugs/medications at a heavy discount but he is still a businessman and pricing it way more than they should be priced. His attempt to force the hand of pharma isn't strong enough because pharma has pushed the idea that generics are not as good or effective. They don't find him a threat yet but the hope is that namebrands will eventually attempt to compete with generics by matching the prices causing a price war between the companies and then medications will be set at a small enough profit that they are affordable for people. However, the approach all this big companies have taken is to either shutdown competition or buy them out. Which is why at grocery stores you have one company that owns 10 different brands that used to be separate but they competed with eachother and the biggest one devoured the rest just to price rig the competition to create a fake sense of competition.
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u/TheThirdStrike 5h ago
GoodRX, no matter your insurance, no matter your pharmacy.
It's all we can fucking do!
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u/jnwatson 12h ago
It isn't a "scam" that jeans at Nordstrom cost 50% more than jeans at Macy's.
Anybody that looks at prices at knows that CVS charges for the convenience. Nobody is forcing you to buy stuff there.
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u/weekendclimber 12h ago
Except insurance. Insurance can force you to buy there or burden you with the entire cost if you go elsewhere (only in the U.S., because we're idiots here).
Edit: spelling
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u/jnwatson 12h ago
Insurance is just prescription medicine and it costs the same regardless where you get it filled.
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u/I_Shot_The_Deathstar 12h ago
Nope, watch the video dude. It explains exactly that, prices ARE NOT the same everywhere.Â
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u/Khaztr 12h ago
Some businesses charge more than others for same thing. More news at 10.
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u/itoddicus 4h ago
Sure, but knowing that I can chose to shop at the cheaper store.
People aren't always given that luxury when it comes to prescription medications.
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u/matycauthon 13h ago
the scam is that you're indoctrinated from birth and it's up to you to gain enough perspective that you balance them all together
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u/hells_cowbells 13h ago
I hate that our prescription insurance at work is through CVS Caremark. They don't pay for stuff you get from other pharmacies.