I was in Italy last week and thought I felt a cold sore developing. I thought, great, I'm in beautiful Italy and about to be disfigured because I didn't think to bring my tube of acyclovir. I have a prescription but rarely have to use it. I paid $7 co-pay so had no idea what the actual cost was.
I thought it may be an over the counter drug in Italy so I went into a pharmacy in Florence and was able to buy a 10 gram tube for 7 euros.
I was curious as to how that compared to the U.S. prices so I went into my local drugstore yesterday, showed the pharmacist the box from Italy and asked him to look up the price on his computer.
Imagine my shock and fury to find out that the same amount, same concentration would cost $208 here for someone without health insurance!
I was prepared that it would probably be more expensive but almost 25 times more? WTF?
What can be done about this? How to get the word out to the American people that they are being monumentally ripped off by the pharmaceutical companies?