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The Inexplicable American Consumer Revolts Against Prescription Drugs
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Anecdotal evidence has been coagulating into numbers, and these numbers are now beginning to weigh down corporate earnings calls. It appears the toughest creature out there, the one that no one has been able to subdue yet, the ever wily and inexplicable American consumer, is having second thoughts about prescription drugs. And is fighting back. A paradigm shift.
We’ve already heard from some companies, such as drug maker Pfizer, whose revenues in the US plunged 18%, largely due to the collapse of its flagship drug Lipitor that is losing its battle with much cheaper generics. But the direst indications came from Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the US—and perhaps one of the best gauges of spending patterns for prescription drugs.
During the earnings call, CEO George Paz, who ominously was “not prepared to provide 2013 guidance,” embarked on a dark speech. The company’s clients had “unprecedented concerns about our country’s economic outlook,” he said. Unprecedented concerns! So even worse than 2008-2009. He went on:
Our health claim clients are expecting membership reductions in 2013. Large employers have pulled back on hiring plans, using contractors and part-time employees when necessary. Mid to small employers are cutting back or postponing health care coverage decisions while waiting for more clarity on Health Care Reform. And we continue to see low rates of drug utilization as individuals deal with uncertainty at the household level.
He lamented “the current weak business climate and the unemployment outlook” and was worried about the “challenging macroeconomic environment.” Shorts must have felt a certain frisson. Remains to be seen whether the dive that Express Scripts shares performed is a buying opportunity that will add to a cushy retirement or one that will slice off your fingers.
But beyond the company’s fate, he’d pointed at what ails the US economy, including a shift to part-time workers and contractors often without healthcare benefits, and smaller employers who, in their struggle to survive, are cutting back on healthcare benefits. As these workers—the inexplicable American consumers—are left to their own devices, they have to make their own decisions about what prescription drugs, if any, to blow their scarce money on.
Express Scripts has seen this trend in another area. Its Drug Trend Report, which dissected prescription drugs sold to its members in 2010 and 2011, sketched the beginnings of the paradigm shift: in 2011, specialty drugs sales increased 17.1%, down from a 19.6% increase in 2010; traditional drugs only eked out a gain of 0.1%, the lowest increase since it began tracking the data; and spending on all prescription drugs combined rose only 2.7%, also a record low. That was for 2011.
But the report didn’t include insights into the buying behavior of the 48.6 million uninsured Americans who’re even more reluctant to spend money they don’t have on prescription drugs they can live without. And it didn’t include the trends of 2012, which as Paz phrased it, are cause for “unprecedented concerns.”
Whatever the reasons, whether prescribing behavior by doctors or buying behavior by consumers, lack of insurance or lack of money, or the growing prevalence of generic alternatives: spending on prescription drugs, long considered recession-proof, seems to have bumped into a wall for the first time ever.
Healthcare costs in the US, around $2.6 trillion a year, or 17.9% of GDP, may be reaching a level beyond which the various players in the economy cannot go, or refuse to go, a market-based barrier of sorts. And the inexplicable American consumer may be on the forefront—not only those who don’t have insurance, but also those who have high-deductible plans.
In 2012, plans with deductibles of $1,000 or more made up 19% of employee-sponsored health plans. Families covered by such plans, for better or worse, are cutting back medical spending ... by 14%, according to a study last year. They’re making medical decisions where at least one part of the equation is their own money. And they’re accomplishing what no one has been able to accomplish so far, namely taming the untamable healthcare expense monster.
That the US has too much debt is no longer a controversial statement. Some may believe other problems are more urgent, or that we need to grow our way out rather than slash spending. But the debt-to-GDP ratio must decrease if we are to have a stable, prosperous economy. Read... One Chart Explains Why Government Debt Is Dragging on the Economy.
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"Side effects may include: Erections lasting more than 4 hours.."
that's the side-effects???
What's the virus, i'll go catch it
"If you have an erection lasting more than 4 hours call the Guiness Book of World Records and notify all ex-girlgriends."
That little piece of marketing has always amused me, because I have never been with or talked to a woman who wants their man to last 1/4 hour let alone 4. After awhile it gets boring and/or painful.
I remember the first time I saw a commercial for a restless leg syndrome drug. It was like all the other drug commercials that had a long list of possible problems to discuss with your doctor. Except the problems were like increased sexual desire, desire to gamble, desire to eat or sleep too much, etc. That drug company came up with a good angle for a commercial. Probably like 5% had some of these symptoms in one study, but it didn't say any percentages in the commercial.
inexplicable?
have you ever watched an advertisement for a prescription drug?
without exception they spend half of the ad explaining how whatever wonder drug may cause paralysis and/or psychotic episodes and/or internal bleeding and/or permanent erections and/or inability to shit and/or inability not to shit and in rare cases development of plumage, beaks or both.
It's the anal leakage that gets me.
Remember potato chips fried in Olestra?
...in rare cases development of plumage, beaks or both.
Just gotta change the pitch a bit...target club kids and plastic-surgery performance artists.
That's right cat. By the time the side effects of anal bleeding, lymphoma, stroke, and death roll around you are about 17 seconds into the spot.
Intuitively, people know they are being over-medicated. This overprescribing is often to save the doctors ass in case of malpractice. Shove a script at them to treat a symptom, not the cause.
Overmedication leads to early death.
Unfortunately, not before both the patient's and the taxpayer's wallet have been looted to the maximum extent permitted by law.
Overmedicated with Psychotropic drugs...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyYqJeEjDhY&feature=related
You should see the side effects of Nozulla:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MtmIaNc2FI&playnext=1&list=PL7208A738894A3CE3&feature=results_video
The conditon known as "hot dog fingers" is my favorite.
pods
I must be hungry. When I read this, I thought you wrote side effects of Nutella. LOL
Is that similar to 'cameltoes'?
very funny, thanks
way to go US consumers
lets teach those corporate idiots a lesson
Mainstream drugs are just as harmful as mainstream media. Hopefully people are learning that natural herbs and compounds are often more effective, far less risky, far less addicting, and most often cheaper.
and big Pharma is scouring the rainforests for plant compounds that they can patent.
And when they find "cures for cancer" or other great advances in those rainforests, but can't find a way to create a patentable artificial compound that works from it, they just hide it and let millions of people who could have been saved suffer horribly and die instead. Case in point, graviola and pawpaw.
papaya leaves and tumeric
Turmeric is good for patients with alzheimers too. (According to Science News Mag) Supposedly, it resensitizes the body to the amyloid plaques and they are removed so it has some reversal effects.
I can't wait for Obamacare to make Tumeric a prescription drug.
You'll be waiting for a very long time!
I take three heaping tablespoons of ground up flax seeds with a cup of green tea and honey every morning. "You have to keep regular if you want to be happy"... Mr Halloran, The shining
try psyllium, it'll give your bowels a good sweeping out, most of the stuff in the drug stores is adulterated with sucrose and other crap so stear clear of those.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Psyllium-Husks-Powder-5-Pounds-Bulk-/26087144159...
you gotta grind some hemp seeds into that to get all of the essential fatty acids.
You mean like the US Department of Health patenting cannainoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants?
http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL...
Yes, cannabis is illegal, but they sure as shit can patent parts of it. After all, they came up with it.
Then, the stupidest patent the Department of Health holds... A Sawhorse Bracket
www.google.com/patents/USD352788
correlation doesn't prove causation. they aren't suspicious as much as they can't afford the drugs. and if they can they're buying oxys, vicodin, and klonopins instead dude
FUCKIN EH RIGHT!
All of you listen to me very carefully. YOU WANT TO SHAVE A COUPLE HUNDRED BILLION sorry caps lock... for starters, from healthcare premiums and attendant tax bullshit?
Put the oxy and the vicodin and the rest of that shit on the shelf at 7/11.
Every time a junkie rolls through the ER or gets into chronic "pain management" they run up a fortune. DEA makes the doctors keep seeing them to pretend it's healthcare (big pharma makes sure this stays cool, god bless 'em). Plugs up the whole system.
Give up the stupid prohibition scheme, Costs us all a bloody fortune and lo and behold, junkies are still junkies, and ye shall always have them. Accept it and load the convenience store racks with the drug of choice. Let doctors be fucking doctors.
Thank you.
In a lot of places, pharmacists are well trained professionals and not chain store monkeys. There, you can talk with a pharmacist and they will help guide you toward a drug, if appropriate. No need for added monopoly rent seeking from the Dr. cartels.
The bullshit scams people put up with because they were told it was for their own safety is stunning. Do we really need the people who cut our hair to be licensed by the state and have more than 1,400 hours (in NH) of class and training time? Or is that barrier to entry simply there because the existing hair cutters don't want too much competition?
Bingo-
I was on the Platform Committee for WI GOP this year and I asked that to the room.
One guy says "so you dont think Doctors should hold a state license either?"
I told him kindly I would prefer our doctors not be held to that low standard.
I long for the day that Reader's Digest goes back to more pages of stories than fuckin' drug ads.
Flipping through a Reader's Digest these days makes me feel like I earned a PHD in Nuclear Medicine.
There's a catalogue in the back...I think the Nuclear medicine Diploma is $149.
They take Bitcoin only.
vicodin and Xanax are generic, yay!
Billions spent on statins and still no proof they prevent heart attacks, but they do destroy your liver and mess with your brain.
http://www.abajournal.com/mobile/article/patients_injured_by_generic_dru...
The EASILY EXPLAINED American Consumer Revolt Against Prescription Drugs:
Maryjane is legal.