ArrayRx is a collaboration of state partners with one common goal — to create pharmacy solutions that are accessible to the people in our communities. ArrayRX offers a free discount card that helps people save on prescription medications, no matter their age, insurance or income status.
Participating residents* save between 18% and 80% on the cost of their medications when they fill their prescriptions at a participating retail pharmacy
Participating residents can use our online pharmacy tools to compare medication prices and search for specific pharmacies
The states include Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Arizona just joined and will be active in 2026.
The program issues a discount card which is similar to the GoodRx discount card. For residents of these states it’s another place to comparison shop for drug pricing. The discount cards (like GoodRx) are often much cheaper than insurance prices.
All the discount cards (GoodRx, Blinkhealth.com) save so much money that it’s truly startling. These, as well as the state-sponsored discount cards, negotiate prices with the middlemen (pharmacy benefit managers) who otherwise mark up prices outrageously.
So the answer to “Where does the money come from?” is that nobody is paying the full list price. Rather, the price is cut because the list price is outrageously high.
This reply triggered decades old thoughts about business and the economy.
Shopping
In much of the world, when you went shopping, you were expected to bargain. A friend told me a story about buying something in a Pacific Island. The shop keeper was offended that he didn’t bargain. They had a conversation, tea, and a good time. In Italy, when I said an item was too expensive, the shop keeper kept reducing the price. When I decided not to buy and left the shop keeper ran after me on the street wanting to bargain further. In a modern shop your bargaining options are reduced to “take it or leave it.”
Employee Benefit Plans
As I recall, 65 years ago at IBM we had three employee benefit plans
IBM paid for my appendectomy
I could buy IBM shares at a discount
IBM matched monthly saving deposits
This was a net positive for employees but did not burden IBM with unknowable post employment expenses like pension plans. That was left to each individual, as it should be.
Defined benefit plans have since gone bankrupt.
Defined contribution plans are now considered miserly.
Economic and other Laws
Adam Smith and others formulated economic laws before the Industrial Revolution. Maybe that’s why these laws don’t seem to work as expected. The personal doctor-patient relation of a century ago has been converted into an industrial process. A long time ago, right here at TMF, we discussed the right and morality of drug companies charging “outrageously high” prices and the right and morality of underdeveloped countries to manufacture cheap generics in violation of patents or other legal protections.
I wish we could simplify. The only way I know to avoid the Industrial Healthcare Complex is to stay healthy. Once you get sick you are caught in its ever more complex web.
ArrayRx has to do the bargaining that we, ordinary people, can no longer do. MacroBargaining displacing MicroBargaining!?
What I find stressful is the loss of control. Insurance companies dictating what drugs and procedures are allowed!? Dreadful.
When you have volume you can negotiate a lower price from the drug manufacturers. That’s what the PBM’s do, then add their (huge) markup, and then the pharmacy adds a markup on top of that. With plans like GoodRx (and maybe this one) they achieve a certain volume and demand a lower price from the manufacturers or they won’t cover it, and therefore the manufacturer may lose sales to other competing drugs.
Mrs. Goofy has a blood pressure medicine which is outrageously expensive at the two pharmacies we typically use, but if she flashes the GoodRx card the price drops from $400 (90 day supply) to $125. But the pharmacy, CVS, which has its own PBM insists on running it through that at the higher price until she objects - and it happens every single time* until she objects. CVS, of course, is trying to feather its own corporate sibling’s nest. But without the GoodRx fill, she would go elsewhere so it becomes worth their while to do it and keep the business, even at a much lower price.
Yes, there is a note in her file to charge it at the GoodRx price. It never matters.