Essay On Drugs Are Not Killing Us

Imagine this: you are tragically diagnosed with a chronic life-threatening illness. Your only hope to survive is through medication to treat your disorder. The medicine is pricy but you can work out the costs each month. One day, you go to fill your prescriptions and realize the cost of a $13 pill has jumped to an astounding $750. You need this patented medication to survive and to afford it you end up losing your home, filing for bankruptcy, and sleeping in your car. This story sounds fictional but it is the reality for many Americans who can no longer afford their grossly overpriced medications.

Both health care organization and individuals, who purchase and consume prescription drugs can play a great role in reducing the nation’s total prescription drug expenditures as well as individual expenses. Since 2004, one out of every ten dollars on health care has been spent on prescription drugs since 2004 follow-on a sharp increase in 12.2 percent in 2014 (Kennedy & Morgan, 2009). This figure indicates that while the U.S. health care gets the best technology and infrastructures in treating its nations, there is an undeniable increase in health care cost, especially, in prescription drugs.

This article is of importance because not only does the former commissioner state the reasons medications are so expensive he proposes solutions to the problem. In his conclusion, McClellan admits the FDA “can and should do a much better job of making safe and innovative drugs more affordable.”(McClellan 2009) That is a large first step to solving the problem that so many Americans

Katie Thomas wrote an article for ProQuest on the raised prices and she references what many companies claim, “But drug companies say the prices reflect the enormous investment of time and resources that go into bringing a drug to market and argue that many times, their drugs can prevent more expensive medical interventions like surgery and hospitalization.” This proves that simply requiring companies to lower prices is not really possible as the costs have to pay for multiple aspects in the drug’s company. This also leads into a point made by Harris Meyer in an article for Modern Healthcare where he says, “the idea that lower prices will reduce the financial incentives for developing new breakthrough products.” A lot of the income from these drugs goes into the research and production of new and more effective products. Another reason for companies to raise the prices is when companies are stuck with producing hard to manufacture drugs as also stated by Meyer, “But rising prices for generics have been triggered by a variety of factors, including a shortage of producers for harder-to-manufacture injectables.” This is a direct explanation of the EpiPen price hike. Evidently, there is a lot that goes behind the pricing of these drug by pharmaceutical

Expenses of medication continue to increase. The expenses of both types of medications, brand-name or generic, still continues to escalate. Even though, pharmaceutical industries may consider the trend as a chance to rise revenue, payers are anticipated to start pushing back (Barnet, 2014). Medications is of the main reasons for the increase of medical care expenses. Rising expenses for medication placed a heavy financial burden on patients who have to have lifesaving medicines in addition to the overall United States health care system. Therefore, we are left having to fork the bill and pay for the expensive medications with higher premiums, out of pocket expenses, or pay both of them. In the United States, the expenditures on prescription

“Medicare formularies have looked to create tier structures that are more complex than the two-tier framework with generic medications on tier 1 and brand medications on tier 2, and shift a greater cost burden for the patients through increased cost sharing.” (Patel, Audet, 2014) Another possibility is the federal government creates and mandates a caped pricing for all drugs, mediations and treatments. Capping the price on drugs and copays ensures that the prices don’t continue to rise to the point of being unobtainable. Some however would argue that by doing this it would create a monopoly of pricing and take away all incentive for companies to be competitive in drugs costs. Some may ask why does the federal government care, well because its simple they have the responsibility to ensure good public order and ensure economic stability. The federal government also has the ability to cut cost through systems and policies such as Medicare and the Affordable Care Act by making copays for individuals cheaper and ensuring the local doctors, clinics and facilities prescribe the most effective affordable

For the 469 drugs on the market since the end of 2004, prices increased by 25.6% from 2005 to 2009, while the general growth rate was 13.3%. Consumers taking drugs to treat chronic diseases found that their average yearly cost increased from $2,160 to $3,168. Not many people know the transition of prices in the medical field. ”Last year pharmaceutical costs grew 13.6 percent – faster than any other part of the healthcare industry – and pharmaceutical company profits were nearly 20 percent in 2012, double the average profit margin for the S&P

The United States spends more money on prescription drugs than any other industrialized country. In 2013, the United States spent $858 per capita compared to the average of $400 for 19 industrialized countries (Kesselheim, Avorn, & Sarpatwari, 2016). Prescription drug costs have significantly increased in recent years: from 2013 to 2015, prescription drug net spending increased to about 20%, which surpassed a forecast of an 11% increase (Kesselheim et al., 2016). Prescription drugs amount to 17% of total health care costs; prescription drug coverage includes 19% of employer-based insurance benefits (Kesselheim et al., 2016).

When it comes to the topic of prescription drugs being regulated, most of us will readily agree that this is a big concern for many Americans. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of why do Americans pay some of the highest prices for prescription drugs compared to other countries. Whereas some are convinced that these high costs are set solely for the fact of the amount of money spent on producing these drugs, others maintain that there is an opportunity for medication prices to be regulated and also an opportunity to allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceuticals and possibly help bring down those high prices . I agree that prescription drugs should be regulated because there are many people that are victimized

In the United States, about three-quarters of all visits to a physician end with a drug prescription, a number that has not changed over time (Kleinke 2001). Prescription drug costs increased 9.8% in the 12-month period marked by May 2015 to May 2016 (Tuttle 2016). In this same time, the overall inflation rate was just 1% in the United States. In addition, food and alcohol prices rose 2.8% and clothing and accessories rose 5.7%. This was the third straight year that American patients have seen an approximately 10% increase in prescription drug costs. The high medication costs are in turn resulting in high health insurance costs for everyone since each person is subsidizing other people’s high medical costs. Imagine if a company develops a treatment

Because pharmaceutical companies have so much power over pricing, they have started to raise prices with no motive other than more profit. In recent years, the industry has seen a steep price increase in drugs. These increases, in some cases, seem inexplicable. Regarding this is the recent example of the EpiPen, a common emergency drug used for patients with severe allergies. In the past, the EpiPen was available to patients for as low as 40 dollars. Now the price is “almost 600 dollars.” (Woodward, Layton) The problem with this is the device has had no fundamentally different changes to it. This means the pharmaceutical company responsible for the EpiPen raised the price for no reason other than more money in the company’s pocket. A

According to an online article, a 2000 study published in the Journal of Health Economics estimated that bringing a new drug to market costs the innovator on average eight hundred and two million dollars over a period of ten to fifteen years. In 2008, the average price of a brand-name drug was $137.90, while the average generic prescription was $35.22 (Health Smart website, 6). The copayment also costs less for the generic medication than the brand-name because the generic did not have to have years of extended research. Today, almost half of the prescriptions are generic (Health Smart website, 7). Price and differences in these medications have an impact on how society looks at the medications they need or

Americans spend more money on prescription drugs than anyone else in other developed countries. The reason is that the drug companies have almost complete control over the price regulation, due to the law passed by Congress that neglected Medicare the ability to be able to negotiate the prices of the drugs, and another generous patent law that allow them to have a long-lasting monopoly. In a recent case, CEO Martin Shkreli hiked the price of a drug that is used to treat life-threatening parasitic infection, a tablet that used to cost $13.50 went up to $750 - an increase of 5,500%. The reason that drug companies give for having such high prices, is that they need to have large profits on the products to be able to continue testing, investigating, producing and to developing, the company stated that a new drug costs about $2.6 billion to develop.

Others say that they are too expensive,the price of prescription drugs is escalating. Expenditures for prescription drugs were $200.7 billion in 2005, five times the $40.3 billion spent in 1990.Expenditures for prescription drugs were $200.7 billion in 2005, five times the $40.3 billion spent in 1990.Eighty-nine percent of new drugs in the U.S. offer little or no additional benefit over existing drugs, yet U.S. drug prices are the highest in the world. Eighty-nine percent of new drugs in the U.S. offer little or no additional benefit over existing drugs, yet U.S. drug prices are the highest in the world.

Drug cost is another major difference between America and other developed nations. It’s no secret that prescription drug cost is unreasonably priced in the United States. Congress created Medicare Part D, which denies Medicare the right to negotiate drug prices, unlike other nations where the government can negotiate for lower prices. For example, Medicare Part D allows for CEO’s like Martin Shkreli founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals, to raise up the price for Daraprim, a drug that treats a life-threatening parasitic infection, from thirteen dollars and fifty cents to seven hundred and fifty dollars a pill.