Harris Teeter, the North Carolina-based supermarket chain with 177 stores in the southeastern United States, has matched discount price programs at Wal-Mart, CVS, Target, Walgreens and Kroger, announcing that it is now offering customers a 90-day supply of over 300 generic drugs for $9.99.
Customers must purchase a $5 drug savings card, good for one year, to take advantage of the discount. The plan doesn’t apply to prescriptions covered by insurance.
We welcome the continuing trend toward low-cost generics. It’s good to see some real price competition over prescription drugs, something that was sorely lacking before Wal-Mart announced its $4 generic drug program.
Unfortunately, the millions of Americans who are struggling to pay their prescription drug bills each month know that the problem has never been generic medication, but brand-name drugs that aren’t among the 300 to 400 on the lists of the discount retailers.
That’s the problem that Wal-Mart can’t solve. Only the government can fix that one.
It is good to see more and more pharmacies jumping on the low-cost generic bandwagon. However, I do agree that the real problem is the brand name drugs. Legistation needs to be passed to establish some guidelines or limits to the cost of brand name drugs.
Prescription costs have become increasingly difficult to manage. One way to start saving is by switching to generic drugs. On http://www.medtipster.com, you can type in your drug name, dosage and zip code and search for prescription drugs that are available on discount generic programs across the country; many of which are available for as little as $4. Prescriptions that are not available on a discounted program often have therapeutic alternatives on a discounted generic program, which are also available on Medtipster.