SEATTLE - There's been plenty of outrage and controversy over the cost of prescription drugs.

But a KING 5 Investigation reveals that some nursing home residents are paying up to five times more for over-the-counter drugs than if they were purchased at a grocery store.

These prices are hitting elderly folks like Joe Gable very hard.

For Gable, the price of prescriptions has reached a financial breaking point.

"After all I'm just a retired railroad man," he said. "I don't own the Chase Manhattan Bank."

Like many seniors, Gable spends much of his fixed income on medicines. When he moved to Seattle's Foss Home and Village assisted living facility, Joe agreed to get his medications filled by Ottersens Pharmaceutical, which is Foss's preferred pharmacy.

But when he saw the charges for over-the-counter drugs, he said "it was shocking."

Gable's bills for items like acetaminophen and Tums were much more than he expected, and he has no family to help him.

Randy Neeley checks in on Gable regularly.

"When he moved in there the bills started coming in and Joe was questioning them," Neeley said. "He says, 'does this make sense to you?'"

The King 5 Investigators have found Gable and residents of many other long-term care facilities sometimes pay five times more for over-the-counter drugs because pharmacists have to package them in individual doses. The extra time means extra charges. But how much money are we talking about? We looked at Gable's bills and then went shopping.

Our first stop was at Walgreens. Ottersens charges Joe $137 a year for acetaminophen, which is generic Tylenol. Walgreens cost is $37.

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Joe Gable agreed to get his medications filled by Ottersens Pharmaceutical, which is Foss's preferred pharmacy.

Our next stop was Bartell Drugs. Joe pays over $110 a year for Tums. At Bartell Drugs a year's supply costs $13.

That's a savings of almost $200 a year. For someone on a fixed income, every dollar counts.

"I agreed to take their medication, but I did not agree to be stabbed in the back," Gable said.

Ottersens declined an on-camera interview, but denies over-billing residents.

"There's more to the cost of pills than just going to the pharmacy and buying the bottle of pills," said Beverly Shaefer, co-owner of Seattle's Katterman's Pharmacy.

She was recently named the national pharmacist of the year. Her business services 10 long-term care facilities.

Shaefer says paperwork, labor and technology costs combined with tight profit margins on prescription drugs leave over-the-counter meds as money-makers.

"So sometimes with these over the counter drugs there is some profit the pharmacy is taking," she said. "Profit should not be equated with gouging the public."

Gable stopped paying his pharmacy bills until he got an explanation about the charges. He claims a Foss Village staff member threatened him with eviction if he didn't pay up.

"If you people can send me out to the curbstone and wake up tomorrow and look at yourself in the mirror with a clear conscience that you did the right thing by evicting a sick old man, be my guest,"  Gable said.

Louise Ryan, Washington's long term care ombudsman, says Gable's claim is troublesome.

"If you do not pay your bill to the assisted living facility that's a reason you can be potentially discharged. But for not paying a pharmacy bill," she said. "That sounds to me like it was coercion."

Foss Village wouldn't talk to us on camera, but said no staff member ever made any threats to Gable. They claim the facility actually helped Joe with his bills.

"Sometimes the bills are very confusing in the end it's very important of who ever is paying the bills to ask questions," Ryan said.

Gable said: "There are a lot of people who don't know what their bill is. The bill is sent off to the relatives and they pay it and don't say anything."