With age comes the need for regular prescriptions, due to the increase in various health concerns. Some prescriptions are inexpensive, and cost is not a problem. I take several prescriptions that only cost me between $4 to $10 per month and when I get them for 90 days, it often drops the price by a couple of dollars.

I’m fortunate as my wife has one prescription that one of her doctors wants her to use that costs over $200 per month. We don’t have Medicare Part D prescription coverage because we cannot afford the monthly premium, so we pay out of pocket and are able to use a discount card, which helps on some but not all.

I know other seniors who pay well over $1,000 a month and some more than that. I knew one senior who paid nearly $800 a month for just one of several prescriptions that he had to take.

Under Obamacare, a supposedly independent panel reviewed what medications would be covered and what ones wouldn’t. In many cases, that panel decided it was best to not cover many of the more expensive medications that many people need in order to survive. The decision forces many seniors to make a decision of having a place to live, food to eat or paying the high price for their prescriptions that were no longer covered under Obamacare. This is one of several reasons that I often referred to Obamacare as a national death system, designed to help older and sicker people die sooner so they are not a burden on society.

A report from Kaiser Health News suggest that if you are a senior and seeking to find a way to lower your cost for your prescriptions you simply ask your pharmacist for the lowest cash price.

In the past and under Obamacare, pharmacists have been operating under a gag order that restricts them from quoting anyone the lowest cash price. President Donald Trump’s effort to lower prescription costs is to lift that gag order and allow pharmacists to quote the lower cash price.

Here is what Kaiser reported:

“Under a little-known Medicare rule, they can pay a lower cash price for prescriptions instead of using their insurance. But first, they must ask the pharmacist about that option, said Julie Carter, federal policy associate at the Medicare Rights Center, a patient advocacy group…”

“Researchers analyzing 9.5 million Part D prescription claims reported in a letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March that a patient’s copayment was higher than the cash price for nearly 1 in 4 drugs purchased in 2013. For 12 of the 20 most commonly prescribed drugs, patients overpaid by more than 33 percent.”

“Although the study found that the average overpayment for a single prescription was relatively small, Newman said he had seen consumers pay as much as $30 more than the cash price.”

Nick Newman, a pharmacist and the manager at Essentra Pharmacy in rural Marengo, Ohio, commented:

“If they bring it up, then we can inform them of those prices. It’s a moral dilemma for the pharmacist, knowing what would be best for the patient but not being able to help them and hoping they will ask you about the comparison.”

If you have Medicare Part D and normally use that coverage to get your prescription, then take a moment and ask your pharmacist the simple question of what is the lowest cash price for your prescription? From the study above, you stand a 25% chance of paying a few dollars less by paying the cash price instead of using your Part D coverage. If it saves you just $25-$30 a month, that’s a yearly savings of $300-$360 a year and I don’t know about you, but that’s a significant savings and can be used to help pay bills. As they say, every little bit helps.