Hacker News Reader

Comment by treis | Hacker News Reader

GoodRX shows me $42.54 at Publix vs $19.40 shipped from CostPlus. So yes, some drugs will be cheaper but it's not the magnitude of savings they claim and it's not across the board. Last time this came up I checked a handful and CostPlus was usually slightly more when you include shipping cost.

View on HN

If many drugs are cheaper... what's the complaint then? That it's not as much saving as they say? At the end of the day, the market will speak. If he's cheaper than the market and people start buying from him, then its a net positive for everyone.

I think the complaint is this isn't a new or unique solution, but it already exists through other companies like GoodRx.

Just out of curiosity, I looked at some of the costs for the most prescribed meds. All seemed to within the same price range. Personally, I liked the GoodRx UI better.

Not that what Cuban is doing is "bad" but I don't know that it needs to be characterized as some radical new alternative. That seems more like marketing hype to me but it does a good job of raising awareness.

If it’s cheaper, why does it have to be a radical alternative? The healthcare system is so screwed up that simple solutions / “low hanging fruit” are available to be implemented. For example, allowing government prescription purchases to be negotiated, which a rational person would deem basic, but it is presented as a draconian act against insurance companies to allow it.

It doesn’t have to be radical to be useful. I think what Cuban is proposing is useful. It’s just not radically better than other options that already exist, so from that perspective calling it unique or novel or radical is mainly marketing hype.

> but it's not the magnitude of savings they claim

I follow Cuban on Twitter and he retweets people constantly who are saving substantial amounts of money. In their own words the savings are huge. Are you claiming these people are lying or fake?

People likely are saving a ton of money, but they were also probably not utilizing the most optimal solution out there previously (e.g. buying through their insurance vs. GoodRX).

Right, so this is a big win for awareness. I've heard of GoodRX a few times but never looked into it because I have decent insurance. It took Mark's new venture, and his marketing efforts (via Twitter) for me to realize "this was a thing".

Sure, but it's not getting rid of middlemen or making anything more efficient. It's just another actor sliding into the market to make a bunch of money exploiting the broken drug market.

It saves pharma consumers money between now and when US healthcare is “fixed” (whatever that looks like), which could still take a long time. As the starfish parable goes, it matters to these people. I encourage you to recognize that reduction in suffering and economic hardship in the short term.

Yeah, I really disagree with the person above you, @treis. This saves people money. It's not stealing from them, it's saving them money. This is a valuable and good thing. This gives attention to the fact that they can pay much less.

The people doing valuable work are Truepill that's actually doing the heavy lifting of fulfillment. Cuban is slapping his name on a white label solution, taking 15% for his trouble, and acting like he's solving the US health care system. In reality, he's just another middleman inflating prices.

How is not a net good? Are you saying that a 50% saving is not significant enough reduction in cost? Certainly this is a step in the right direction? I get that Cuban putting his name on an existing project is kind of annoying but it's certainly good PR for the company, right?

Even though it’s not for every drug it’s still a helpful tool/product and not mutually exclusive of GoodRx

Sounds like it could be replaced with rsync and a cronjob?

How do you know it’s only “some” drugs that are cheaper?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com