(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




Government Launches Comparison Shopping Site For Drugs

from the oh-look,-your-discounts-aren't-discounts dept

The government has launched what is basically a comparison shopping engine for prescription drugs. Drug buyers can go to the site, put in the drugs they have prescriptions for along with their zipcode and find out what local pharmacies are charging. While, officially, the site is designed for Medicare recipients to help them determine what sort of "discount card" they should get, people have quickly noticed that the "discount card" is something of a misnomer. The prices you get with the discount card are pretty damn similar to what you get without it. Still, by making prescription drug buyers more informed, the government is hoping to push drug prices down. Of course, if they really wanted to do that, they'd list Canadian pharmacy prices as well.

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