Noooo.. not the illegal ones - the prescription ones  ;)

Its just that my doctor has put me on antibiotics for an infection (nothing serious or salaciious thank you) and it cost me £3.60 for a week long course. I'm just wondering if, when you need medicines in the USA, they are cheaper or more expensive. As an example a course of HIV treatment would cost a person between £4-6 a month (around $8-10) and Viagra - for all you older people wanting to relive their youth, would cost around the same.

Does it depend upon the medical insurance plan you undertake ?

I'm curious because it looks like I might have to spend a few years in the USA in the near future for business reasons and although I would obviously have private health care through my work, I was curious as to whether I could get away with a minimal plan, etc.

It depends on the policy.  Typically, the higher the premium, the lower the cost of the prescription.  Although, there are minimums.  Some are actually based on percentages, and have a maximum out of pocket of about 35 USD (give or take).

If I had to pay full market price out of pocket, my antidepressant, Effexor, would cost about $250.00 a month.
It's funny, the only concerns affiliated with healthcare NOT running totally in the red are pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies!
The drug companies say if they can't charge us an arm and a leg for brand-name drugs, they can't fund all that research and development it takes to come up with tomorrow's miracle drugs.
What these corporate greed-heads don't want you to know is YOU, the taxpayers, are the ones who fund the R&D.  The government makes all the breakthroughs with public funds, and then gives the patents to private companies for private profit.  They pharmaceutical companies aren't soaking you for benificent purposes, they're just doing it to get stinking rich!

Noooo.. not the illegal ones - the prescription ones  ;)

Its just that my doctor has put me on antibiotics for an infection (nothing serious or salaciious thank you) and it cost me £3.60 for a week long course.

Hey, you must live in Wales, prescriptions in England cost £6.50 per item- I was shocked when I went to Wales recently & got a prescription there, I could save about £20 a month just by travelling over the border to get my scrips!
That being said, it's still cheaper than buying some drugs over-the-counter. I get 28 daily doses of a protein-pump inhibitor on scrip for £6.50- I ran out yesterday & had to buy some (which I was unaware you could do)- £9.50 for 14 daily doses!

My employer-provided scrip plan charges me $5.00 for generic and $12.00 for name brands, that's about L2.50 and L6.00 (if I remember the exchange rates right).  My dad, on Medicare, with no drug benefit, would pay upwards of $1,200 a month for his various scripts, but he buys them over the internet from Canada at less than half that. 


If I had to pay full market price out of pocket, my antidepressant, Effexor, would cost about $250.00 a month.
It's funny, the only concerns affiliated with healthcare NOT running totally in the red are pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies!
The drug companies say if they can't charge us an arm and a leg for brand-name drugs, they can't fund all that research and development it takes to come up with tomorrow's miracle drugs.
What these corporate greed-heads don't want you to know is YOU, the taxpayers, are the ones who fund the R&D. The government makes all the breakthroughs with public funds, and then gives the patents to private companies for private profit. They pharmaceutical companies aren't soaking you for benificent purposes, they're just doing it to get stinking rich!


Max is almost totally right on this.  Drug research is overwhelmingly paid for through tax $$$.  That's why just aboiut every third advert on any TV station, over air, cable, or dish, is for a perscription drug.  This costs BILLIONS every year, and, of course, consumers pay for it, and then clog our health care system asking their doctors to explain why "Only Zantac is Zantac" (now over the counter, for heartburn but never explained in the ad).  There was a time in the US when advertising perscription drugs was not permitted.  Then we had "deregulation".

Sorry for the rant.  The short answer to your question is, if you pay "out of pocket" expect to pay "through the nose".