(10/31/02) -- Millions of Americans have tried to save money by switching from brand-named prescription drugs to cheaper generics. But even patients on generics are having a tough time affording their medications.

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When Channel Nine's health reporter Barbara West looked into generic drug prices, she found that the very drugs, which drugstores promote to save you money, have one of the highest markups of any retail item.

Between them, Charles Williams and his wife, Margaret, take 16 different prescription medicines every day. All but two of the Williams' drugs are generics. Even paying for the cheaper generics, their drug bills add up to $250 a month. And consumer advocates say they should be paying a lot less.

Here's one example: Margaret's blood pressure drug, Atenolol. A 30-day supply from the store where she shops costs about $11. That may not sound like much, but consider that this medication wholesales for a $1.80 for the same number of pills. That's an increase of over 600 percent. And that's on the low end of the scale.

We surveyed 8 local drug stores to compare the prices they charged on 18 of the most commonly prescribed generic drugs. We found it's common for generics to cost 10 to 20 times their wholesale prices.

The worst we found was the generic for Prozac, which was typically priced 3,000-5,000 percent over its wholesale value. To compare, imagine your grocer pays .20 cents for an orange. At a five thousand percent mark up, you'd be paying $10 for that same orange.

"I've been in this business 20 years and this is the worst I've ever seen it," says Wayne Gardner. He works with Senior's First. Every day he gets calls from desperate seniors who can't afford to buy their medications, even if they take generics.

Pharmacies say they have to increase the prices on generics to make a profit, since they make almost nothing on brand-named drugs. Michael Polzin, a spokesperson for Walgreens, admits, "A pharmacy typically does make more money on a generic than a brand named drug. You are able to charge more for it without it becoming a burden to the patient."

"And you should be charged a fair price for a fair product, but when you hear markups like this, it's not fair, it's not right," says Gardner.

Not every store inflates the prices on generics. Costco's markups ranged from 86 percent to 423 percent, half what other stores charge. And in Florida, you don't have to be a Costco member to use the pharmacy.

Margaret may be ready to switch pharmacies. She's tired and fed up with being overcharged for generic drugs. To make ends meet, Margaret, 75, has gone back to work at the Marks Street Senior Center. While others her age socialize and play bingo, Margaret is on her feet, serving them. "I've worked all my life. And now, in my later years, I've still got to work in order to survive and I don't think it's fair," she says.

We should point out that pricing gets very complicated when it comes to generic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry uses a marker that they call the "average wholesale price" to determine what to charge for drugs. But the average wholesale price is not what pharmacies actually pay for those medications. Retail chains are able to cut deals with pharmaceutical manufacturers that may knock as much as 95 percent off the average wholesale price.

We were able convince some drugs stores to give us their negotiated wholesale prices provided we didn't use their names. Those negotiated wholesale prices are what we used in our price comparison, and they can change from store to store, day to day.