when I first lost insurance, I asked my local (rite aid) pharmacy about the generic price of what I was taking hoping to buy 90 days worth - they quoted me ~$10

when I first lost insurance, I asked my local (rite aid) pharmacy about the generic price of what I was taking hoping to buy 90 days worth - they quoted me ~$10/pill (one per day). I can order it from aliexpress for ~$0.24/pill, and from alibaba for ~0.002/pill (in powdered form). since it's a fairly common chemical that was patented in 1957, and is listed by wikipedia as costing between $0.01/pill and 0.04/pill wholesale, I really started to question the prices. of course, now my insurance pays for it, and marks it at ~$1/pill in their "invoice". still, somehow the math doesn't add up. no cvs near me to compare to, but Walgreens was similar prices. it really feels like a scam, but who can you really complain to? I'm in no way sympathetic of for-profit health insurance companies, but I have to hope that someone can push legislation to help curtail this. of course, this is just one point of anecdata, but looking at similar costs of things like omeprazole over time seem to corroborate these findings.