A member of my household has a costco membership so we were gonna try and get me vaxxed using their member discount for the $140 price rather than the even more evil $202 price. So I called and confirmed with the Pharmacy that we could pull it off, we could not. I'm gonna have to buy my own membership, but first I wanted to confirm how much it would cost there.
Pharmacy tech: "Cash price is $39 and some change."
Me: "For the Novavax?"
Them: "Oh you're also getting Novavax. That was Flu. Let me check. It's probably the same though."
Me: "Oh, I don't think so."
A few seconds of keyboard clicks go by.
Them: "Nobody ever asks about the cash price. It's. Oh.... It's $201.99"
Yeah, that's what I freaking thought.
The costco membership is $65, but it actually is cheaper for me to buy a membership because I can get a $20 giftcard back if I do it through the veteran's reward program. Guess I'm getting a costco membership.
This bleeping country.
According to my uninformed opinion, this is what's holding next gen vaccines back. Like for the last 2.5 years we've all been reading about successful sterilising or improved vaccines passing 2nd and 3rd stage human trials, but it all ends because no for profit company feels any incentive to pick up the university research and actually sell the damn thing. mRNA vaccines are perfect in a way, they're expensive af and it needs to be updated every year.
I need to stress that this is all vibes from me, tho.