Health insurer: Consumers can save with generics
-
- May
- 5
A mere 10 brand-name drugs accounted for more than $1 billion in spending on prescriptions filled for upstate residents last year – nearly 20 percent of the total spent on prescriptions, according to a report issued today by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, the region’s largest health insurer.
The drugs and the conditions they treat are:
Lipitor, cholesterol, $241.5 million;
Advair, asthma, $116.3 million;
Protonix, heartburn/ulcers, $107.6 million;
Prevacid, heartbrun/ulcers, $103.6 million;
Plavix, heart disease/stroke prevention, $96.7 million;
Enbrel, arthritis/psoriasis, $90.8 million;
Nexium, heartbrun/ulcers, $85.5 million;
Singulair, asthma and allergies, $80 million;
Fosamax, osteoporosis. $78 million;
Effexor, depression, $74.3 million.
The health insurer pointed out that many of the medications now have generic equivalents that are much cheaper. It urges consumers to check what’s available at http://www.excellusbcbs.com
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on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 12:33 pm by Jay Gallagher.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
