Influence And Dominance Of Phrma

1 Kaiser Family Foundation Report on the Uninsured. Available at http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7451.cfm. 2 Danzon, P., et al. “The Impact of Price Regulation on the Launch Delay of New Drugs.” Health Economics, 2005; 14(3): 269-292. Available at http://hc.wharton.upenn.edu/danzon/html/Journal_Articles.htm. 3 The Boston Consulting Group. “Ensuring Cost Effective Access to Innovative Pharmaceuticals – Do Market Interventions Work?” April, 1999. Available at http://www.bcg.com/impact_expertise/publications/files/Ensuring_Cost_Effective_Access_Innovative_Pharmaceuticals_Apr1999.pdf 4 Thorpe, K. et al. “Differences in Disease Prevalence as a Source of the U.S.–European Health Care Spending Gap.” Health Affairs (Web Exclusive) Oct. 2, 2007. Available at www.healthaffairs.org.

I argue that advances in technology, nondiscretionary costs, and lack of competition in the medical equipment, pharmaceutical retail and insurance markets are the main reasons behind the high cost of health care. In this paper, I will use and analyze various resources like America’s Health Care Crisis: Who’s Responsible by Nancy Levitin, Health Care USA: Understanding its Organization and Delivery by Harry A. Sultz and Kristina M. Young, and Epidemic of Care by George J. Isham and George C. Halvorson to prove and support my argument, which is that advances in technology, nondiscretionary costs, and lack of competition in the medical equipment retail market, are the specific factors behind the rising cost of health care. I will also propose different strategies that will help achieve lowering the price of healthcare. Many people across the nation are unable to seek medical attention due to insufficient funds. If people do not receive health care, communicable diseases may spread more often on a large scale and life-threatening diseases may go undiagnosed leading to an increase in death rates. Making health care affordable can be achieved by making advanced technology less expensive, decreasing the amount of nondiscretionary costs, and increasing the competition in the medical equipment, pharmaceutical retail and insurance markets.

Pharmaceutical spending in Canada has inclined rapidly over the years. Prescriptions drug spending in Canada has been inclined by several different factors. These factors have contributed to expenditure by the growth of the population, price effects volume effects and much more. The cost of drugs has affected the drug expenditures in Canada in several different ways. Some of the factors are international pricing, inflation, retail and wholesale markups. Introducing new products to the market has increased the drug expenditure while the generic brands have decreased. Furthermore, changes in price controls or extending patent legislation has prevented a less expensive alternative from coming to the market. Changes in policies like regulations,

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

In response to a loss of revenue from Medicare Part D prescription drug payments, drug manufacturers may increase the cost of pharmaceuticals elsewhere, such as the private sector. This escalation in prescription drug prices could result in the price of different insurance policies to increase as well, placing a greater burden on private insurance holders. Specific, quantifiable predictions regarding possible payment increases for privately insured individuals have not been as well-established as has the overall trend of a probable increase in these costs.

The article “Painful Prescriptions” illustrated the effects of the rising costs of prescription drugs on patients and pharmacies. The gross profit has always been large for prescription drugs, as it takes pennies to put compounds together, but as of recently the costs of certain drugs has skyrocketed, yielding major profit margins for companies. Pharmacy benefits management (PBM) has been used to “lower” costs, and yet the PBM’s are making larger margins that typical pharmacies. PBMs are also a major player in the game for prescription drugs, being that they distribute 70% of the total drug sales within the United States. They are the underlying cause for high drug costs, but with traditional, there’s no way to telling what revenue is really being made and what is truly overhead costs. It’s shocking that this PBM costs so much for Americans.

U. S. citizens pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world. This is an injustice that must be corrected. The "U.S. forbids the import of prescription drugs by anyone other than the original U.S. manufacturer, and even then only when the drugs meet all the approval requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)" (Barlett & Steele, 2004). Prescription drug prices are outrageously high in the United States because of the influence of advertising on consumer purchasing, the misleading statements by pharmaceutical companies about the cost of research and development of new drugs, the manipulation of patent laws, the antiquated laws regarding importation of

As companies continue to develop new, innovative products, they gain the advantage that comes from a lack of substitutes that insurers can present. This encourages large pharmaceutical companies to spend money on lobbying to greater influence large decisions made in the executive and legislative branches and maintain their monopolies. In 2014, five major drug companies reported to have increased expenses allotted for lobbying by one million dollars (NCPSSM, 2014). In the long run, this gives large corporations more favorability in the legislation that is enacted on matters concerning Medicare Part D and other drug disputes, creating an unequal advantage. This is most clearly represented in the figure below that outlines how much drug lobbyists have given in terms of donations to politicians. This in turn misrepresents the population that is affected by the decisions made by the government and leaves consumers to deal with the

Over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent a total of $2.3 billion in order to influence lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. This has proven to be a fruitful expenditure considering the fact that the five largest pharmaceutical companies have an evaluation of over $1.04 trillion. One of the first successful moves big pharmaceutical lobby groups was the passing of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. The “non-interference” clause in this act prohibits the ability of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies. By doing so, the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to price freely and optimally. However,

“The amount people pay for health insurance increased 30 percent from 2001 to 2005, while income for the same period of time only increased 3 percent.” (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation). The rising cost of healthcare is a huge problem in America today. In this paper I will analyze the different issues and causes for the increase in cost.

The video beautifully merges the problems that will be faced by the health care system of the United States in the near future because of some of the issues that are present pertaining to the pharmaceutical companies and the regulations of the health care system. It should be noted here that generic medicines are the medicines that are being used in America more than the branded ones. The reason for this is that these medicines are cheaper than the branded medicines. However, the same branded medicines are available in other countries at a cheaper rate. The main reason for this difference is that the health care system of the United States does not have a price control system and therefore, the American consumers have to sort of subsidize for the consumers of the branded medicines all over the world. Apart from this, the Federal Drug Authority has shown a decline in the acceptance rate of the drugs. The different pharmaceutical companies that come up with different formulations of the medicines are turned down because FDA does not permit these medicines to come into the US market. Moreover, the health care system of the country does not provide free medicines to the people as it happens in other welfare states like Canada.

Health care costs are extraordinarily high and keep getting higher. Individuals in the US that do not have access to medical services are running as high as 43.4 million and This number has grown by over a million in each of the last three years. (AFSCME, n.d.). The rise of prescription drug

In recent years, prescription drugs spending has been one of the most rapid rising components in the healthcare industry. In 2008, prescription drugs spending

Researchers at Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services found advancements in technology as the main reason for rising healthcare cost. On reason for this is research, millions and billions of dollars is spent every year to develop new technology and find cure to many diseases. Many pharmaceutical companies have come under hammer for high drug prices and huge spending on research. According to researchers from Tufts University, pharmaceutical drug costs increased from 5.5-8.5% of total healthcare spending during the 1990s (CITE). About $111 billion dollars was spent on research in the United States, with pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries topping the table. There’s no denying the fact that research helps

In my opinion, insurance companies, physicians, and patients are the main drivers to the rise of healthcare cost because the uncoordinated pricing of services by doctors, inadequate coverage by insurance plans, and the chronic conditions that Americans suffer. With physicians and insurance providers investing more into their companies, they fail to see that the lack of investment in their patients has lead to many delaying care because of it