Prescription Drugs: Experts Say Savings Spring from Smart Choices

Generic vs. Brand Name Drugs

When individuals or employers for group health plans sit down and craft options to cut health care costs, they often include prescription drugs in the mix. This is likely due the significant roll that drugs play within the health insurance plan.

Among all types of medical costs, drug prices are rising the fastest, according to new research by the Government Accountability Office detailed in a recent Reuters report.

The study found that the price index for the top 100 commonly used drugs rose by an annual average of 6.6 percent from 2006 through the first three months of 2010. That compares with a 3.8 percent annual average increase in the consumer price index for all medical products and services.

Billions of Dollars could be saved 

A new study by Express Scripts notes that if all patients consistently used generic or low-cost brands, home delivery and followed doctor's orders, the nation could trim as much as $403 billion a year in health care spending.

Keeping this in mind, savings in monthly premiums for an insurance plan can be realized by choosing a plan that limits the drug choices to generic only. However, if someone prefers or needs the brand name medication later on, then any savings from a less expensive "Generic Only" plan will be cancelled out by the need to pay for the higher priced brand name medications.

Deciding on what plan to choose is not always easy. Going with an option of "Generic Only" medications may save you in monthly premiums, but there could be trouble lurking around the corner when Brand Name medications are needed.

Jaws vs. Pharmeceutical Companies

Baldwin Georgenton Insurance Agency is creating our first blog during Shark week so we thought it would be appropriate to post about Sharks... Hope you find the information as interesting as we do.

HAPPY SHARK WEEK

 

Many breakthroughs have been made resulting in shark cartilage being known to cure everything ranging from a common cold to battling cancer or heart disease and malaria.

"Scientists have believed for over 35 years that since sharks do not appear to develop as much cancer as humans, there may be something in their systems that protects them from getting cancer," stated by Gabriel Feldman, MD, director of prostate and colorectal cancer for the American Cancer Society.

It is extremely difficult for cancer to grow in cartilage due to the fact that it does not consist of blood vessels.  A popular theory is that Cartilage stops the main source that fuels the tumor which is Angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels).

The identification of an angiogenic diffusible factor derived from tumors was made initially by Greenblatt and Shubik in 1968.

Danger lurks in murky waters...

...as the debate continues between strategic marketing campaigns and some biologists disagreeing about shark cartilage being a beneficial cancer treatment.. 

Professionals like Gary K. Ostrander, who’s a research professor in the departments of Biology and Comparative Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University; has the opposition that the use of shark cartilage can be a misleading and disappointing outcome for humans as well as sharks.

"Since shark cartilage has been promoted as a cancer cure, not only has there been a measurable decline in shark populations, but cancer patients also have been diverted from proven, effective treatments," Ostrander says. "People read on the Internet or hear on television that taking crude shark cartilage extract can cure them of cancer, and they believe it without demanding to see the science behind the claims."

 "The fact is that it is possible that highly purified components of cartilage, including from sharks, may hold some benefit for treatment of human cancers," Ostrander says "The key will be to isolate these compounds and design a way to deliver them to the site of the tumor."

The Cancer Treatment Research Foundation conducted a 1998 study with 60 cancer patients in the advanced stage, stating "shark cartilage powder has no effect on slowing the cancer, improving the quality of the participants' lives, or shrinking the tumors" 

Based off of the 1998 study, Barrie Cassileth, PhD, author of The Alternative Medicine Handbook, stated "Everybody in [the field of oncology] knew way before this article was published that shark cartilage cannot possibly be beneficial.  There are possibly chemical components in shark cartilage that may have a tumor-reducing effect."

 

Environmentalists are also concerned about the decline of sharks with in the last decade and the cost of using shark cartilage could be very costly as a result.  Although there are extreme mixed reviews about shark cartilage being the magical wonder cures for cancer the relentless optimists are working with pharmaceutical companies who may one day make synthetic shark cartilage.