Your Health Has a Price, It's One Dollar

I am often fascinated by the lack of dissemination of critical pieces of information. Why is it certain myths become common knowledge and incredibly relevant facts do not?

Such existential questions are beyond the scope of this blog but I would like to focus on one common misconception that has without question cost Americans billions of dollars over the years: the perceived benefit of name brand medications. 

For those who have recently taken a stroll in their local CVS, looking for a pill to provide some relief to an ailment this post is for you. You are most likely paying far far more than you should be for the right to use the wonders of modern medicine. 

To prove this, let us all mentally take a walk down the pain relief aisle in your local drugstore. Most consumers who embark on this journey will see a variety of ailments. Stopping at eye level, we will observe a pill box with a pretty blue, gridded background and a professionally designed logo: Advil. Closer to the floor, we will see a bland box with the word Ibuprofen. It claims to relieve the same ailments and is marked down to roughly half the price.

A lovely candid shot of Advil packaging. I have to say, even though significantly better than the generic bottles, I'm a little disappointed by Pfizer's work here. The only thing they have going for them is the pretty package, they probably should change the background to something less TRON-like. 

Most people at this point will make a quick decision in their head, should I trust this box with it's bizarre chemical compound written in Times New Roman font or go with a brand name that I have seen on TV? No one wants to jeopardize their health in the interests of a few dollars and the inviting Advil bottle is grabbed. 

Here is the problem, that sketchy looking box below our branded blue hero is in fact the same exact medication as Advil. Ibuprofen is Advil. The choice between these two medications is a complete illusion created by greedy corporations to take advantage of consumer ignorance.

The specific ignorance in question is that consumers typically think of shopping for medication in the same way they think of shopping for tomatoes. There is no standard for what a tomato is and two tomatoes picked at random are likely to be quite different. An individual must therefore be vigilant at the store, using their ability to understand ripeness and texture to pick the correct vegetable for their dinner that night.

Medication however is not like this at all. Chemicals are chemicals. The composition does not change whether it is organic, GMO-Free, or cage-free. Therefore the only thing the consumer must be wary of is if the manufacturer of said chemicals are telling the truth about what it is in their pills.

Fortunately, in the United States, we have a regulatory body that deals with this called the FDA so we don't have to ourselves. Medications are tightly regulated in our country and a manufacturer can not list Ibuprofen as an ingredient if there is no Ibuprofen in the medication they are selling. So therefore, if the ingredients are the same and are in the same concentrations, you are buying the same exact medication and have a government agency to sue if this is not so.

Now for quite a few people (particularly those well-versed in chemistry) none of what I wrote is going to be news. Many people I have this discussion with simply laugh at the ignorance of consumers who buy into the medication marketing machine and point out they will always grab the generic at their local CVS.

However, even this subsection of the population is buying into the corporate greed they decry. All the big pharmacy chains mark up their generics significantly higher than one needs to pay. They can do this because the only immediate point of comparison the shopper has is the brand name medication above the generic.

Therefore merely discounting a generic by a few dollars is sufficient to net a sale from the intelligent individual aware of the whole brand name swindle in the first place.

So what is a person to do? Make like Sisyphus and declare your anguish to the deaf ears of the Pfizer and Rite Aid gods about the ripoff you can't afford due to your choice to get a liberal arts degree?

There is a better solution: Dollar Tree. Out of all the dollar store chains nationwide, Dollar Tree is the only chain that does not price anything in its store over the price of one dollar. And out of all the items they sell, the greatest bargain that they have is their medication section.

A quick price comparison shows us the significance of potential savings. Walgreens sells its generic Zyrtec for a seemingly reasonable price of 14 tablets for 10 dollars. Dollar Tree on the other hand sells 14 tablets of generic Zyrtec for yep, you guessed it, a single dollar.

An example of one of the myriad of items that is not best bought at Dollar Tree. Though in all fairness, that dude seems pretty into it. 

This is not simply being cheap, we are talking about a 10x increase in price with literally no justification. Virtually every single medication that you can buy over the counter can be purchased at Dollar Tree and all of them are a fraction of the price compared to just about anywhere else. Heck, spend 20 dollars once at that store and you can probably open up your own pharmacy and rip off all your friends.

Look, certain things in life are worth paying premiums on. The penny pincher who skimps on internet speeds, garbage bags, therapists, and literally hundreds of other things does so at their own peril.

Pharmaceutical companies are well aware that many know this to be true and exploit it for financial gain. It is a classic example of bombarding the consumer with excessive choice to create the perception of premium products where they do not exist. You don't have to play into this game and support such silliness. Do the right thing, be cheap about your health.