Name brand medications

My husband had a heart attack in Dec. he was placed in so many medications majority of them are name brand that you see in commercials. Total without insurance is $3000 a month easy without insurance. First of all how in the heck do people pay this if they didn’t have insurance and if the company cards weren’t in existence ? Just got us thinking how much kick back to Drs get from the pharmacuetical companies . I mean before these medications were so popular how did our elders het by with the old style medications that didn’t hardly cost a penny compared to now !