I really don't understand this at all. Anybody with a health card

can take their script for drugs & pay $5.40. If they get the generic

they still pay $5.40. As a parrallel situation, would you buy NO Name

ice cream for $5.40 if you could buy Streets or Peters for $5.40?

Also somethings have been deleted from the benefits list without any publicity.

I went to get a flu vax. No longer $5.40 but $24.50 - removed from the HCC list.

I said no thanks because of that, plus the fact that it was imported because the local supply had run out.



ArchoooooooooooooooSniffSniff

I really don't understand this at all. Anybody with a health card

can take their script for drugs & pay $5.40. If they get the generic

they still pay $5.40. As a parrallel situation, would you buy NO Name

ice cream for $5.40 if you could buy Streets or Peters for $5.40?



Not quite right Innes.



If there is a generic - you have to pay a levy on top of the $5.40 and that is the worst thing for me as I find generics too weak particularly anti biotics.



Levy is supposedly the price of the original drug which underwent the trials and was approved for use the price charged and changing yearly as they catch up on the rort found out by Abbott in 2006 that the pharmacists were charging the agreed higher price to the PBS but getting a much lower price from the generic co in order to push their largely inferior products which as NOT the same but contain only the same active ingredient and may not be of the same grade either and the rest of the fillers can make a difference to the way the drug works on some folk.



Americans have tested these generics as longer there in use and found that most are too weak but some too strong and kill.



As I never ever trust again any generic because we are what we eat - and I am fussy and had a bad experience with weak anti biotic - I find I pay different prices as a levy for the original drugs and they are getting cheaper as the schedule cuts in that was set out by Abbott in December 2006 and cuts out to cheap price as was 2006 charged to the pharmacist by 12.1/2% yearly - should have gaoled the lot of them for fraud as they would others but no one to dish out the meds if that happened !!!



I am now paying only $22 on my Pana Forte when it was $28 a couple of years back - the generic Cobra Forte 1 with 30mg Codeine works less well on me than a 8mg of Codeine Panadeine over the counter drug which is ludicrous to me but others swear that they work for them.



Read today that from May 1 2010 all that contain any Codeine at all will have to have a doctors script to buy - just another way of pushing up prices going to the doc to get a Panadeine pack of pain killers!



There simply has to be a better way of stopping druggies wrecking the economy for their habit.

It is the usual way by Labor to legislate to stop a social problem and punish the many for the few - remember Bex! 2c on leaded petrol because you owned an old car and so on - madness of the left wing ideologues - ALP



Mind you I think also that people on the Age Pension with no other income other than the allowance over should not have to pay one red cent for their meds and where there is not a pharmaceutical drug without side effects that kill like for arthritis cholesterol etc an extra allowance or a bit back scheme on those natural meds including Fish Oil and Garlic which save Health monies. maybe Doctors cert that you take them om his recommendation and send in monthly and get a bit back.



After all if they can pay put 4.5 billion on foreign aid in this Budget - elderly people are not foreigners so cut that back and look after their own citizens and also look to help the mentally ill who are struggling too.



Charity begins at home.

Thanks for that BigVal. I don't take any drugs, other tha blood pressure

tabs (generic) so I just didn't know that. I will try the real ones next &

see what they charge & whether it lowers my blood pressure any

further.

Tell me about BP meds - having now started on yet no 6 trial since January and I think that this is the last too.



My doctor is one famous for never believing side effects actually exist.



They do. I have a gourmet run of them in the last few months and in the end he has given in and stopped thumping the table.



One I am one currently is weakest of its class - newest in the bunch here and seems to be working - but first he tried me on 8mg and it was too strong and actually made my knees stiff and painful in a different way to arthritis and I cut it in half and tried it whilst waiting to get in to see him - 3 weeks - and it worked stiff knee pain went - so he said can carry on splitting them in half and save yourself the money as only 1 month on any of these or can get a 4mg one - I opted for the 4mg one to save having to cut one in half and worry about the other half.

Being new no generic to date thank God so no levy.



I actually always wonder why humans are soeasy to get to take mes on being told exactly the same when they are clearly not. Women in particular - you make a cake with certain ingredients - change them and the cake tastes different. Why then for the sake a cents or even dollars - put into you body something which hasnt actually ever been tested and is only randomly tested if at all and which does not need to be the exact same ingredients nor of the exact same quality nor tested on a group of humans? Beats me - you only get one body - if we are what we eat and no one disagrees with that as it is proven - eat fat and your health declines etc etc - so why risk it ?



Of course out comes the mantra - we are saving the government money - but are we? If an anti biotic is too weak and the infection goes for a short time but returns stronger - and you again take a generic and again it comes back - that is wasting money not saving it as once you take the original - it never does come back and I have had it proved to me.



Good luck with yours - mine is down to 140/80 - never had any problem with the bottom one only the top raging higher than the approved for over 65 which is 140/90 and not the lowered one for under 65 120/80 and I was 120/80 for many years now with meds my lower one is down anywhere from 65 - 80. Doctor told me the 1`40/90 but not on the net if you google lots of stuff all saying 120/80 benchmark but until 1995 was always 140/90.



Seems sometimes to me - cynical maybe - that the drug companies get a bit too much say in some things that result in their selling more of their drugs and making more profits - strange that - why would they want to make more money - no one else is greedy are they - OK I own up - joking - everyone is out for all they can get and if it far too much to spend in one lifetime - only a few like Bill Gates actually give it away others horde it and want even more!

BigVal, I hadn't been to a doctor since a bad car accident in '97, until I called

in to see a Dr. friend 18 months ago. He insisted on checking my heart

& BP, which he told me, was dangerous at 170/110. He prescribed some

weak pills then increased it to Micardis+ 12.5 mg. I am not aware of any effect

or side effect other than he tells me that my BP is now ok at 130/70. He told

me to walk more & not to lift weights anymore & that I will be taking the

tablets until I die. I am currently looking for an alternative, because I don't

believe in drugs, in principle.

I wonder how you manage to get around Mr Innes as you get so much wrong

so much of the time.

How many times now have you apologised for quoting or giving

out information which is not correct?



Never mind plenty of clever people here who pick you up and set you straight.

Maybe all for the best the Party you were spouting did not quite make it..

Now that would be scary if you were at the helm sorry :gulp:

Where you always a bitch Korry, or is it just something

you have developed as you got older?

She tells it like it is innes ..........be a man and admit that you are wrong most all of the time ................and by the way if you have to be nasty when you post a reply here why do it at all...............

How can a lying, bi-polar, trollpaste, who posts under various alias' & who

has personally destroyed one forum & been banned off another, possibly

form an opinion about somebody they have pushed the ignore button on ?

How can a lying, bi-polar, trollpaste, who posts under various alias' & who

has personally destroyed one forum & been banned off another, possibly

form an opinion about somebody they have pushed the ignore button on ?



You really have lost it innes and let me say that because you live in a glass house you should not throw stones ..............now do you get it ...............

BigVal, I hadn't been to a doctor since a bad car accident in '97, until I called

in to see a Dr. friend 18 months ago. He insisted on checking my heart

& BP, which he told me, was dangerous at 170/110. He prescribed some

weak pills then increased it to Micardis+ 12.5 mg. I am not aware of any effect

or side effect other than he tells me that my BP is now ok at 130/70. He told

me to walk more & not to lift weights anymore & that I will be taking the

tablets until I die. I am currently looking for an alternative, because I don't

believe in drugs, in principle.



Seems like you were really very lucky to find a BP med that works once and without any nasty side effects.



Stick with it is my advice - as for bringing it down naturally - walking 30 mins a day in a brisk fashion or at least 3 K's inclusive will do the trick as well as lose some weight rofl.........



Pity Tassie has so many healthy bike riders belting along as fast as they can - that most of the elderly struggle on the beach here which does not lend itself to brisk walking - but can't use the lovely footpath running along the topside as it has bike riders belting along - adults and many grey haired - who think you have to jump out of their way. CBD only places where local councils ban bikes on footpaths.



All because the pollies cant be bothered/ or don't care/ or think elderly folk or those unable to jump quickly- don't count enough to add to the 1999 Road Traffic Act and ban bikes on footpaths unless toddlers. As this of course would be too sensible as the children learnt the road rules and rode safely on the road - single file - not double as allowed and dangerous - as we all used to do before pc raised its ugly head and made good bad and bad good . Also would stop the call for more training in road rules in schools etc.