“That’s An 8500% Markup”: Doctor Goes Viral On Twitter After Sharing A Thread About How Retail Pharmacies Put A Ridiculous Markup On Medicine
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We’ve all heard a thing or two about the American healthcare system. To put it simply—it’s probably not the best system in the world. People who get ill are sometimes left with huge debts, it costs hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars to call an ambulance, and they can even charge you for “skin to skin” contact when you give birth to your child. Talk about unfair!
When it comes to medicine, the situation seems even direr. Recently, Emily Porter, a doctor based in Austin, Texas, shared an infuriating Twitter thread about the cost of drugs and ridiculous markups on medicine. Scroll down below to read it!
More info: Twitter
This doctor went on Twitter to share a thread about the ridiculous markups on medicine
Image credits: dremilyportermd
The thread shared by an Austin-based MD has caused quite a stir and received more than 56k likes and over 18k retweets. A lot of people on Twitter found the thread infuriating. “Why aren’t Americans smashing [things] up over this and demanding a better system?” someone tweeted below the now-viral thread. “The worst thing is that American healthcare ideology is bleeding over the pond. There needs to be some direct action ASAP.”
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
“Retail pharmacies make an absolute killing”
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
“How frustrating to be a patient and take in a prescription only to find out it isn’t affordable”
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
“The patient is angry, the doctor is frustrated, and the pharmacist is busy”
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
“So you’ll wait in the ER and we’ll avoid eye contact the 9 hours you’re there feeling like we’ve failed you”
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Here’s what other people said in a viral thread
Image credits: liberalinTX
Image credits: CBW_TwHR
Image credits: jypseywheel
Image credits: OnkelMaike
Image credits: edwinhollins
Image credits: dremilyportermd
Image credits: ParagMajmudarMD
Image credits: jcovvey
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The US: We're the best country in the world! Every other country with free healthcare and gun laws: NOPE
As a Canadian I can't get on board with the idea that guns are a human right and medical care is not.
As an American, I can't get on board with that idea either. Politicians claim to fear socialism, but have no problem profiting from it themselves...they have universal health care, courtesy of the taxpayer.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Nikki Sevven haha
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
sunny_911990 ?
Bc it benefits the rich. And they will keep lobbying politicians and brainwashing citizens to keep it that way. Funny how they are always so active and loud about politics while their political system doesn't take care of them at all.
This comment has been deleted.
snAil the anarchist love
snAil the anarchist +
snAil the anarchist easy
snAil the anarchist haha
snAil the anarchist follower
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
snAil the anarchist haha
England, same.
Must be why so many Canadians cross the border into the US to pay for the lousy American care, right?
Leo H, care to prove that point? Facts and figures will suffice.
Quit yo jibba jabba haha
Quit yo jibba jabba -
Quit yo jibba jabba good
Quit yo jibba jabba like
Quit yo jibba jabba what
Quit yo jibba jabba ?
Quit yo jibba jabba -
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Guns are not a human rite..it is a constitutional one. Second your medicine is cheaper because the latest drugs,tech,gear is developed in the us..so we are stuck footing the bill for research,developement,testing,fda approval
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Not sure what guns have to do with the price of healthcare
Patents exist. Companies who create a drug first will be the only ones allowed to produce it for a certain amount of time. So when cheaper alternative brands flush the market with the same products, those original companies have regain their research cost (and maybe much more). So no one is stuck here. They are just making deals with each other to eat off poor people.
There is a connection between both. Brainwash them enough to think that they have certain rights, and then give it to them by taking away other rights.
It is almost. No win situation! As a former nurse, I remember paying for needed scripts for a couple of patients leaving he hospital! They couldn’t afford them, and without the antibiotics, they might have died. We had a wonderful discharge planner, and she worked to get them what they needed, but insurance companies, Medicare, and pharmaceutical companies make. Killing off their drugs, and in this money hungry process, actually kill people, because they can’t afford the drugs to save their lives... this could end by our government taking charge and making this be fo e, make the pharmacies compete for their drugs, to sell, by lowering the prices a whole bunch, and hospitals and doctors using the ones that have the best drugs at the lowest prices. No other country does this to their people. Only the USA, makes you feel unworthy and expendable , when you can’t afford your drugs to remain alive.. ie, insulin, epi pens... why do we allow them to play God?
The drug companies need to cover not just the cost of making a pill, but the sometimes decades of research that went into developing it - and to fund the research for the next great drug we all want. A lot of NZ drugs come from the US. Yet we don't pay a fortune for them as users. The problem is the US health systems - the insurance company scam and the irrational fear of 'socialism'. My mum is on chemo right now. Not paying a thing for it, nor for the 2 weeks she spent in hospital awaiting a diagnoses, or for the anti-nausea meds after chemo. Our taxes aren't crippling, yet we can provide all this for free. It's so do-able, but such a huge change for the US to make.
RaroaRaroa no
RaroaRaroa no
RaroaRaroa +
The only people winning are the insurance companies.
We dont..maybe you noticed that you can get free epi pens by contacting the manufacture.. its the same with alot of drugs
But you shouldn't have to resort to that to get what you need. That's the whole point.
Leo H good
jes2011 yes
Why does the US feel like a massive reality competition show? "Survival of the Fittest"... physically or financially...!
Cat Good response!
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Huh do you realize that 48 percent of the us population pays no taxes,gets gov housing,food stamps and welfare checks.. If anything its a drain on the middleclass
You're mistaken. Per the most recent US census, 21.3% of Americans participate in at least one welfare program, less than half of what you claim. Participation rates are highest for Medicaid (state health insurance program for low income residents). The next highest group is for food stamps, and a large percentage of this group works at a minimum wage job. Taxpayers are supplementing the income of low wage workers while the huge corporations they work for are profiting. Maybe if corporations actually paid their workers a living wage, the taxpayer bill for welfare programs would be lower. You're blaming those who are poor when you should be blaming the wealthy. While it's true that 44% of people don't pay federal income tax, it's because their incomes are extremely low. Still, all of that 44% pays sales taxes, excise taxes, and the like.
It is 100% not true that 48% of the country pays no taxes. Many people have incomes too low to be required to pay income taxes, but they pay sales tax and other taxes. In an opposite case, when Donald Trump was caught not paying income tax, his surrogates pointed out that he pays taxes; they just glossed over the distinction between income tax and other taxes. These same people, using a cruel double standard, will often claim the poor who don’t pay income taxes “pay no tax”.
The US: We're the best country in the world! Every other country with free healthcare and gun laws: NOPE
As a Canadian I can't get on board with the idea that guns are a human right and medical care is not.
As an American, I can't get on board with that idea either. Politicians claim to fear socialism, but have no problem profiting from it themselves...they have universal health care, courtesy of the taxpayer.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Nikki Sevven haha
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
sunny_911990 ?
Bc it benefits the rich. And they will keep lobbying politicians and brainwashing citizens to keep it that way. Funny how they are always so active and loud about politics while their political system doesn't take care of them at all.
This comment has been deleted.
snAil the anarchist love
snAil the anarchist +
snAil the anarchist easy
snAil the anarchist haha
snAil the anarchist follower
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
snAil the anarchist haha
England, same.
Must be why so many Canadians cross the border into the US to pay for the lousy American care, right?
Leo H, care to prove that point? Facts and figures will suffice.
Quit yo jibba jabba haha
Quit yo jibba jabba -
Quit yo jibba jabba good
Quit yo jibba jabba like
Quit yo jibba jabba what
Quit yo jibba jabba ?
Quit yo jibba jabba -
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Guns are not a human rite..it is a constitutional one. Second your medicine is cheaper because the latest drugs,tech,gear is developed in the us..so we are stuck footing the bill for research,developement,testing,fda approval
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Not sure what guns have to do with the price of healthcare
Patents exist. Companies who create a drug first will be the only ones allowed to produce it for a certain amount of time. So when cheaper alternative brands flush the market with the same products, those original companies have regain their research cost (and maybe much more). So no one is stuck here. They are just making deals with each other to eat off poor people.
There is a connection between both. Brainwash them enough to think that they have certain rights, and then give it to them by taking away other rights.
It is almost. No win situation! As a former nurse, I remember paying for needed scripts for a couple of patients leaving he hospital! They couldn’t afford them, and without the antibiotics, they might have died. We had a wonderful discharge planner, and she worked to get them what they needed, but insurance companies, Medicare, and pharmaceutical companies make. Killing off their drugs, and in this money hungry process, actually kill people, because they can’t afford the drugs to save their lives... this could end by our government taking charge and making this be fo e, make the pharmacies compete for their drugs, to sell, by lowering the prices a whole bunch, and hospitals and doctors using the ones that have the best drugs at the lowest prices. No other country does this to their people. Only the USA, makes you feel unworthy and expendable , when you can’t afford your drugs to remain alive.. ie, insulin, epi pens... why do we allow them to play God?
The drug companies need to cover not just the cost of making a pill, but the sometimes decades of research that went into developing it - and to fund the research for the next great drug we all want. A lot of NZ drugs come from the US. Yet we don't pay a fortune for them as users. The problem is the US health systems - the insurance company scam and the irrational fear of 'socialism'. My mum is on chemo right now. Not paying a thing for it, nor for the 2 weeks she spent in hospital awaiting a diagnoses, or for the anti-nausea meds after chemo. Our taxes aren't crippling, yet we can provide all this for free. It's so do-able, but such a huge change for the US to make.
RaroaRaroa no
RaroaRaroa no
RaroaRaroa +
The only people winning are the insurance companies.
We dont..maybe you noticed that you can get free epi pens by contacting the manufacture.. its the same with alot of drugs
But you shouldn't have to resort to that to get what you need. That's the whole point.
Leo H good
jes2011 yes
Why does the US feel like a massive reality competition show? "Survival of the Fittest"... physically or financially...!
Cat Good response!
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Huh do you realize that 48 percent of the us population pays no taxes,gets gov housing,food stamps and welfare checks.. If anything its a drain on the middleclass
You're mistaken. Per the most recent US census, 21.3% of Americans participate in at least one welfare program, less than half of what you claim. Participation rates are highest for Medicaid (state health insurance program for low income residents). The next highest group is for food stamps, and a large percentage of this group works at a minimum wage job. Taxpayers are supplementing the income of low wage workers while the huge corporations they work for are profiting. Maybe if corporations actually paid their workers a living wage, the taxpayer bill for welfare programs would be lower. You're blaming those who are poor when you should be blaming the wealthy. While it's true that 44% of people don't pay federal income tax, it's because their incomes are extremely low. Still, all of that 44% pays sales taxes, excise taxes, and the like.
It is 100% not true that 48% of the country pays no taxes. Many people have incomes too low to be required to pay income taxes, but they pay sales tax and other taxes. In an opposite case, when Donald Trump was caught not paying income tax, his surrogates pointed out that he pays taxes; they just glossed over the distinction between income tax and other taxes. These same people, using a cruel double standard, will often claim the poor who don’t pay income taxes “pay no tax”.