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Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs
- PStamatiou 4y agoDiscussed before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932233
- olalonde 4y agoAnd two days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31652264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31652264
- gedy 4y agoI hate to be so cynical if it helps people, but with his name plastered in the company and site like this, it feels like prep for a presidential run or some other political office.
- enkid 4y agoNaming a company for a founder is common
- rumblestrut 4y agoWalmart certainly comes to mind.
- elliottkember 4y agoAnd Taco Bell
- rumblestrut 4y agoI didn't know that Bell was the founder's name. Thanks for that tidbit!
- elliottkember 4y agoWelcome. It’s one of my favourites!
- KptMarchewa 4y agoIf you're Michael Scott Paper Company.
- YetAnotherNick 4y agoOr Disney or Ford or McDonald's or Goldman Sachs or 1000s of others. Even in pharmacy, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and many others are named after founders.
- dymk 4y agoCuban isn’t a founder. He just paid to have his name associated with the company (or rather, the company gave him an ownership stake to use his name).
- anandchowdhary 4y agoHe wasn’t one of the original founders, he was an early investor.
- gedy 4y agoYeah it just dawned on me that the first name was added because "Cuban Drugs" probably doesn't sound too nice, ha.
- flappyeagle 4y agoWho cares. Honestly. Maybe it burnishes just image. Maybe he dominates the market and makes a mountain of money. Let’s make that trade 1000 times.
- madoublet 4y agoYeah, hope it is a stepping off point for launching a better private insurance company as well.
- wollsmoth 4y agoI feel like he has a shot. But from what I know about him I don't think he'd want the headache.
- sjm-lbm 4y agoIf I'm understanding their basic message, the pitch is "we can get you cheaper prescriptions because we're a well run business that's making a rational but not exorbitant profit" and linking your branding to someone already famous for running businesses seems to be a very reasonable way to add credibility to that message. In other words, I don't think Cuban puts his name on all businesses he's involved in like this, but for this case specifically it seems fairly obvious that using his name furthers their message.
- benjaminbachman 4y agoAlso it's a sketchier industry, so having a recognizable name certainly would assuage my fears about using it. That said I have to assume Cuban is also getting a PR benefit here.
- timerol 4y agoI assumed it was to help add legitimacy to the company. Some random company selling drugs for cheap on the internet? Sounds very sketchy, stick with your local pharmacy. That same company, run by a famous figure? Maybe worth giving a shot
- swalsh 4y agoSo does this work by essentially bypassing the PBM rebates process, and directly negotiating with the manufacturers?
- ipnon 4y agoOn the homepage they say they markup the manufacturing cost by 15%, include $3 for pharmacy labor, and finally apply shipping and handling based on location. It seem even with such healthy margins they're still an order of magnitude cheaper for some medications. Big Pharma looks obscene sometimes.
- GiorgioG 4y ago> Big Pharma looks obscene sometimes. Sometimes? The medical industrial complex's MO is to squeeze as many people (in the USA) as they can for every penny they have. The American sheeple have been duped to vote against their own best interest (a single-payer system). We don't have the best medical care in the world and we pay at least 10x for it.
- paulluuk 4y agoWhy do you use the word "sheeple"? What is the intended effect you wish to have on the reader? Is it supposed to be half insulting and half funny like people saying "no shit sherlock", or does the word have a more profound meaning to you?
- armitron 4y agoYour single payer system would end up as yet another bloated inefficient government bureaucracy that never goes away. NHS would pale in comparison. No thanks.
- zdragnar 4y ago"big pharma" aren't cut out of the line, it's the distribution company that sits between the manufacturer and the pharmacy.
- whoomp12342 4y agoHow is the cost so low? we bypass the pharmacy middleman. ooooh okay that is really neat How do I get the drugs? order it from our pharmacy. Wat?
- tonyhb 4y agoThey bypass the people who sell drugs to existing pharmacies by operating their own D2C pharmacy themselves. Instead of: Pharma co -> Distribution -> Pharmacy -> You It's: Pharma co -> Cost Plus -> You. Cost plus is still a pharmacy by definition.
- chevman 4y agoFrom their site: "We work with Truepill pharmacy, our trusted fulfillment partner to fill your prescriptions. Truepill has a team of accredited pharmacists who will ensure your medication is safe and delivered to your doorstep on time." Oh, and guess who owns most of TruePill??? Hint - https://www.optumventures.com/portfolio https://www.optumventures.com/portfolio There is very little new in the PBM/Pharmacy world from what I've seen, just more layers of redirection and subterfuge :)
- tonyhb 4y agoYeah, I'm very familiar with Truepill. They're the secret sauce behind many companies: Hims, Nurx, Roman, etc. Truepill is a _dominant_ supplier of drugs to many companies at this point.
- anon2020dot00 4y agoWhy is this being pushed multiple times on Reddit and on Hacker News? Seems like a marketing campaign for clout.
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- lotsofpulp 4y agoAnytime I see celebrity name, I assume marketing campaign. Reddit is simply unusable, everything is an ad outside of posts on technical topics.
- a4isms 4y agoAs was said fondly of computer magazines during the era when they were the size of telephone books and you could shake a rainforest's worth of inserts out of them: > Everything is an advertisement, and some of it is clearly marked as such.
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- pvg 4y agoPlease don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nimbius 4y ago[flagged]
- FredPret 4y agoLibertarians by definition aren’t taking one for the collective team
- prepend 4y agoSpoiler, no one is taking one for the team. I don’t actually want to rely on altruism and I prefer a solid, non-exploitative business model where people do a good job because they want to get paid.
- prepend 4y agoIt seems like a good opportunity to use automation to cut out a lot of admin bloat. So the motivation here would be to make a ton of money. I think one of the issues with healthcare is the incentives are out of whack to increase costs as that makes more profit. For example, insurance has to pay out premiums in benefits so to make more money they raise premiums and pay out more, but have a higher profit at the same margin. For example, if I collect $100 in premiums and pay out $80, then I have a gross profit of $20. And it’s hard to increase that. So how about I increase premiums to $120 and pay out $96? Now I have $24 in profit. So I don’t care much about increasing costs as it makes me more. If I just have robots processing orders and can funnel all the profits directly to me (or a small group of employees and investors) then I’m able to take lots of market from “fat” insurers before I maximize my market share and start to increase costs. The nice part about this is that it disrupts the current insurer, pharmacy, drug company environment where none of them care much about costs.
- KaoruAoiShiho 4y agoSo is the cost actually low? The last time this came up on HN people agreed the costs are standard and the other pharmacies do not charge the high prices on the comparisons.
- trident5000 4y agoI order a steroid cream and its significantly less than Walgreens for the exact same thing. Just my 1 data point.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoIt depends on the drug. Shipping is enough to make it more expensive than Costco or GoodRX in some cases. YMMV.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoIt would seem to me the appeal of this service is not saving x% on average but avoiding paying x000% more for some niche needs.
- tcmart14 4y agoThis is where it is difficult to judge from where I see it. The last company I worked for had great insurance, really great insurance and this CostPlus in most areas can't beat what I would pay through insurance. However, I am in a new job where the insurance isn't as great, so maybe CostPlus may come out to be cheaper? I havn't delved too much into my current insurance to know yet, but it definitely isn't as good as the insurance I got through my last employer.
- bitsnbytes 4y ago"this CostPlus in most areas can't beat what I would pay through insurance" But are you taking into account how much a month you are paying into that insurance when comparing the two? If CostPlus is coming close to what you are getting your prescription for with a paid into insurance plan, than I would call that a win for those without insurance. Might be worth looking at lowering my own insurance coverage to one that might not be that great for prescription, as long as costplus and costco type places come close to after insurance priced meds.
- athorax 4y agoI looked up a few of the medications I take and the prices were about even with what I pay at Costco. This is great if it is more accessible for more people
- bitsnbytes 4y agoJust for confirmation and clarification: When you say the prices were about even with what you pay at costco is that comparison with or without healthcare insurance paying part of it? If your insurance paid part of it and its comparable then Cubans pharmacy is a win for those without healthcare insurance.
- vxNsr 4y agoCostco doesn’t take insurance either
- bitsnbytes 4y agoahh thanks for the clarification, I wasn't aware that they didn't take insurance.
- sct202 4y agoThere's a $5 shipping fee that isn't included until check out, so for a lot of cheap drugs it's still cheaper to go thru GoodRX/Walmart/other discount programs.
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoAre you looking at the right place? I clicked on the medication's link (just for lookup), and it took me to a page which listed Manufacturing, 15% Markup, Pharmacy Labor and in a circled blue box: "* additional cost at checkout Shipping $5.00".
- shkkmo 4y agoYes, you can find information that they will add that to the price, but the prices they list to drive you into that funnel don't include that charge, which is a deceptive pricing practice. The original point is that if you include that cost, then their prices for many drugs are no longer the cheapest.
- sct202 4y agoThat's what I mean, the list price in the big box is just the mfg, markup and labor. You have to add on $5 to the 'Transparent Pricing' that they put in the giant box in the center of the page, you only see that there is an additional shipping fee if you click thru the little slider or submit an order.
- ihattendorf 4y agoDo they discount shipping for multiple items ordered? In that case I personally think having shipping separate makes sense, as 2 $5 items shipped might be e.g. $16 total not $20.
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- trident5000 4y agoI switched to this after the 3rd time getting abused by Walgreens. In my area they dont even acknowledge you when you walk to the counter and forget your refills. The pharmacists just blatantly lie to you that it will be ready at this point. They are overwhelmed and Walgreens doesnt want to pay for more pharmacists while not limiting how much business they can reasonably take. Ordering has made things easier for me and I feel like less of a buffoon standing there in that dumpster fire.
- ericbarrett 4y agoWalgreens has their own prescription plan with a $10/year fee that offers significant savings on generics (I've used it between jobs). But they seem to treat their pharmacists like crap so some locations are really terrible to deal with.
- trident5000 4y agoMakes sense. Yeah its not the pharmacists fault, its corporate who has no pulse on whats going on. Or they just dont care.
- NortySpock 4y agoHeads up, I think your autocorrect converted "generics" to "genetics".
- ericbarrett 4y agoThanks, fixed!
- klvino 4y agoWith the repostings, does this hint that they're looking for additional funding/investment or attempting to further scale the business.
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- criley2 4y agoMore competition in this space is good and for certain drugs may be a huge boon but for the average prescription, consumers should probably stick to goodrx to find the best deal. In my case, Cuban offers a very reasonable $7.50 for a 90 ct of a drug I searched (not including shipping, which others here say is $5?) On GoodRx I see the same drug at a local grocery store for $6.84, (Costco is $8.49) and online pharmacies like geniusRx are $4.50 (s/h unknown). My health insurance through a local pharmacy would cost $14.38 I don't like all the advertising on costplus about how they're saving you like $490 out of $500 on Rx, because everyone else is doing that to. There is literally nothing new here. My local grocery store beat his price by 10%+. But as long as you know that the "pricing reduction" is total bunk and not a competitive advantage and just an explanation of the current state of the industry that EVERYONE is doing, then it's one more option that could be the lowest for you. In my case, it didn't help me.
- arcticbull 4y agoAs always the issue with privatized social services is that the goal is to make money, not to provide a service so the incentives are fundamentally misaligned. For-profit care providers make money when the fail to provide care. When they fail to cover procedures. When they can substitute lower-quality or less effective goods and services. When they can sell you catastrophic cover with deductibles and co-pays too high for you to actually afford to use it - the way a gym membership makes money selling subscriptions they know you won't use. This is by definition an improvement over what America has, so I welcome it. That doesn't change the fact it's an umbrella in a hurricane, so it's really not that interesting. Socializing the whole thing is significantly better. Remember America already has socialized medicine for 40% of the population. It is long past time to up that to 100%.
- daniel-cussen 4y agoThat's pretty much it, but I would add that since medicine in the American sphere of influence is a cornered market the goal is always to deny care, so the patients are more desperate and pay higher prices. Endgame is a billionaire paying his whole billion-dollar fortune for a loaf of bread because he's starving. First you have to corner the market, then deny food, then eventually yes, eventually he will in fact pay a billion dollars for a loaf of bread, I fucking guarantee it.
- arcticbull 4y agoIndeed there's no reason that Cuban won't, like Uber, wake up one day and 5X prices - or bring in the recently-released Pharma Bro Shkrelli. Good will and brand alone isn't sufficient to build a medical system on.
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- trident5000 4y agoMaybe, but increased competition never hurt the consumer.
- treis 4y agoFrom the time this was posted two days ago: This keeps showing up but it's total bullshit. Cuban wants to take 15% of the transaction for running a web site and processing payment. They're not manufacturing drugs. They're not buying drugs. They're not shipping drugs. They're not doing anything at all besides taking your order and giving it to someone to do all those things. It's not a charity. It's a profitable business and a very profitable one at that. Oh yeah, and the prices aren't lower than what you can get using GoodRX.
- 0des 4y agoI mean if you're old enough to remember broadcast.com I don't think anybody had high expectations.
- pc86 4y agoIt seems to have worked out for him.
- whitepoplar 4y agoI'm curious, what was broadcast.com like? What were the issues?
- criddell 4y agoHow does GoodRX work?
- bmelton 4y agoThey're a deal site, basically You need <drug> in <area> They search pharmacy prices in <area> for <drug> + <generic versions of drug> You get back a list of where it is cheapest to have <drug> fulfilled by a pharmacy in <area>
- SeanLuke 4y agoThis isn't correct. GoodRx makes money by partnering with Pharmacy Benefits Managers. It's taking advantage of a loophole in the US's extraordinarily convoluted drug pricing system.
- jansan 4y agoI just found out that insulin is ten times more expensive in the US compare to Europe. This can hardly be explained without the existance of a price cartel and something seems to be really rotten in the US drug market. Let's hope that efforts like this will help bring prices down to a more reasonable level.
- dawnerd 4y agoI noticed they have Famotidine and says it requires a prescription for the 20mg but you can buy that amount otc. Their 60ct is only 9 cents cheaper than the Target brand. So I guess you definitely would want to cross-shop a bit. I still think this is a great service regardless.
- tluyben2 4y agoFrom the faq; > Why are your prices so cheap? Not native English, but that is not English right? Edit; guess my school English told me that is wrong ; - prices are low - this medicine is cheap So learned something ;) thanks
- cochne 4y agoIt is
- maybeOneDay 4y agoNot sure on the technicalities but as a brit I'd read that without pause, it's perhaps informal at worst.
- nkrisc 4y agoUnless it's just because it's early, I can't find anything wrong with it and I've been reading it over for minutes now trying to find what someone might think is wrong with it. EDIT: As an American, "Why is it so cheap?", and any variant, is completely normal.
- tluyben2 4y ago> Why is it so cheap That seems different ; ‘it’ refers to the goods, not ‘price’. Didn’t know it was common, like said, not native english.
- purpleflame1257 4y agoI am a native English speaker and that is a grammatical sentence.
- core-utility 4y agoIt may not be proper, but I'd say it fits for common language. Alternative would be "How are you able to sell for such a low cost?", but that's almost double the number of words.
- tluyben2 4y ago
- lvl102 4y agoWhy is this keep getting spammed on HN?
- humanistbot 4y agoIt is being spammed all over the internet (reddit, twitter, tiktok) every few weeks, so my guess is an internet marketing firm.
- mmh0000 4y agoBecause it made the front page of Reddit. It's an easy way to karma-farm on HN.
- SeanLuke 4y agoThe FAQ question I was hoping to see, but did not, was "How is this different from GoodRX?"
- Gordonjcp 4y agoAs someone living in a country with first-world healthcare I think it's insane that you have to pay out of your own pocket for medicines, and doubly so that it takes a private company run by someone trying to make *less* money off people to do the job the government should be doing.