How you are ripped off on drug costs

Let's Talk About Cost -While biopharmaceutical companies set the list price for a brand medicine, 40 percent of a medicine's list price is given as a rebate or discount to the government and middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Insurers negotiate large rebates, but do not share these discounts with patients who pay a deductible or coinsurance -- a percentage of costs a patient is responsible for paying out of pocket -- for their medicine. Ultimately your insurer determines what you pay for your medicine out of pocket.