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.
Annie Alexander says:
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.
Amanda says:
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.