Not all meds equal - in cost or quality

Followup to last week's post on the unexpectedly high cost of some medication and kicking myself for not looking it up first: So today, I had the followup appointment with doctor. After being kept waiting about half an hour, I had worked up a good head of steam to confront him about the lower-cost meds he could have prescribed. When I showed him a list of four alternative meds and asked why he prescribed one that I had to pay a lot of money for, he was taken aback. Perhaps it was a certain amount of vehemence on my part. But he actually had a reasonable explanation: the med he prescribed was far less likely to have a certain undesirable side effect, plus it could be ceased immediat...