Prescription v OC meds

It has always appalled me how seldom your friendly local General Practitioner will prescribe an Over-the-Counter product. That some must be very effective is confirmed by the tear-off label that lets the pharmacist hide its true identity just before he transmits it to you over-the-counter

Still there must be scores if not hundreds of OC equally or almost as effective as their Prescription Med counterparts and yet your GP very rarely suggests the OC, paradoxical in view of the fact that the prescription is required when the substance is known to present serious risks; and yet its PM status prices it 25 times the equivalent OC

Still this apparent contradiction isn't well known or much appreciated, as a quick Googling reveals

https://www.google.com/#q=best+over-the-counter+meds

,….disappointing in that most such hits are aimed at a specific condition such as runny nose, few naming the entire panoply of reasonably effective OC

To put it bluntly I wonder if our GP isn't being misled, while we're being screwed