Pharmaceutical Cost Research Paper

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.

The cost of health care has been at the forefront of politics for years. It is one of the most talked about topics not just in political venues but also country wide. Every American has an opinion on how our economy can be fixed and they are passionate about health care reform. The price of insurance alone causes many Americans to not have coverage. For those that can afford coverage, the struggle to pay co pays is immensely crippling their bank accounts. Of these burdens on Americans today, the most frightening fact lies in the cost of prescription medications.

This is a serious long-term concern, and needs to be addressed. Some methods to ensure medications are lowered and kept at prices Americans can afford, is to create policies to demand transparency from pharmaceutical companies, allow generic drugs to be created, and remove the ban on Medicare permitting them from negotiating prices on medications.

Many people see the drug price increases made by Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals of the toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim by 5000%, or, the EpiPen’s 400% price hikes as being immoral, unnecessary, and just price gouging, but others and I argue that the increases are well justified and really not detrimental to consumers. Dr. Nitin Damle of the American College of Physicians had this to say on the matter to members of congress, “The research, development, regulatory, and payment systems for prescription medication are deeply intertwined, and the pressing issue of drug pricing and payment will require comprehensive efforts not only by Congress,

The cost of prescription drugs in America has risen to a level that most Americans could not afford them without the help of an insurance plan. The greedy and capitalistic pharmaceutical companies rely on the United States to fund the future development of drugs with skyrocketing prices. Public health costs are bankrupting individual Americans and posing serious challenges to the city, state, and federal budgets. Some people are even going to Canada and Europe to buy prescription drugs. A numbers of Americans are forced to choose lower-priced drugs rather than expensive prescription drugs as their first line of defense against illness. The FDA is fighting both initiatives saying “they cannot guarantee the safety of imported drugs and challenging both the safety and effectiveness of many dietary supplements”. (by. Wyn Snow)

Drug cost is very high even if the patient chooses to a generic version of the medication. Although there are similar drugs available to treat the same ailment one would think it would keep the cost low to minimize the competition that has no bearing on pricing medicine. According to Kesselheim, Avorn, & Sarpatwari, (2016), between 2013 and 2015, the cost of prescription drugs in the United States increased approximately 20% exceeding the forecasted amount of 11%. The cost of prescription drugs is undeniably one of the key components that adds to the cost of healthcare. Biologic drugs such as Humira can cost the insurance companies thousands of dollars and still leave the patient to contribute a high portion of the cost. Individuals who

However the pharmaceutical industry disagrees. They claim that the difference in world prices reflects the cost the companies need to recoup their research, development, and selling costs, not to mention the filing and protecting of their patents. These patents they claim are needed to ensure incentives to develop these drugs in the first place. Drug companies do the research and development work needed to discover the new drugs, and as a reward for this they have free rein to set the

A substantial piece of the U.S market in the health sector is run by the prescription drugs and, therefore, making the U.S the global largest market of pharmaceuticals accounting for more than a third of the world’s expenditure on drugs. It is estimated that in 2014 slightly over $300 billion were spent on prescription drugs which accounts for roughly 10 cents of every dollar in the U.S healthcare market. The U.S expenditure on prescription drugs has been growing at an annual rate of 11% for the last 27 years between 1980 and 2007. But the expenditure has slowed between 2008 and 2013 to about 2% annual average which has been occasioned by several reasons including the 2008 financial quagmire which was also responsible for the reduction in the overall U.S health care costs, the application of controls towards insurer drug utilization and also the production of a less amount of new blockbuster drugs within that period (Institute for Healthcare Informatics, 2014)..

Prescription drugs all around are very expensive, but without out them some of us would not be able to say we are alive. We can still see the price of these prescription drugs go through the roof as we speak. Although most of low-income workers can barely afford medicine and drugs, one way or another, we make it work because without it we would be dead. Although having insurance covers a lot of our medical health expenses, such as medical bills, prescription bills, hospital bills and things of this nature. As the cost of prescriptions keep going up, sometimes our insurance companies cannot cover the cost because they have hit their Cap of money able to spend. Some insurance companies have Cap for a person or a cap for a whole family it can be yearly or annually it just depends on the “deal” you worked out with your insurance provider. Most families, like my own make due to cover the cost of having insurance, yet we have to still be able to cover what remains of the prescription cost if we want to live. Money sometimes is very tight and meeting these necessary financial situations get tough.

Our government needs to bargain for better prices from drug companies, “ Not only would negotiation substantially reduce prices, seniors and people with disabilities can pay for their drugs” (bernie). In many countries the government sets a price limit on medication costs so that drug companies can’t raise prices too high; so, people can pay for their prescriptions (CNN). The negotiation for better drug prices could save medicare between $230 billion and $541 billion over the next decade (bernie). We need to arrange for better prices from drug companies and, while we are doing that, people should be able to get their medicine from outside the country.

The article shows that in the last twelve months drugs prescriptions were really high for about 28 millions Americans and about for millions of them could not get their prescriptions altogether. Some experts think it is based to basic market economics. The point is that there is nothing that puts a stop to it said Lisa Gill of consumer Reports. Companies can charge whatever they want.

Health care costs for the average family are going up, the rising costs are rising faster than wages and inflation. Most of the uninsured are Americans who are working, but can’t afford health insurance. Most people that have insurance, can get insurance because their employers cover it. 60% of people get health insurance through employers. 9% of people actually purchase their own policies. The remaining have insurance through government. The basic principles of the economy are such as; supply and demand, and intellectual property rights. The economy has many effects on drug prices; scarcity, cost of research, cost of production, value of the commodity, cost to take a drug to market, and prices based on benefits to patients. There are many

Although this is not a popular concept in the United States this method is used in various countries around the world. Many critics argue that if it were implemented in the United States, it would have a negative effect on the pharmaceutical industry. It is believed that this would cause investment and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry to cease thus compromising the health of future patients. Although there is always a negative risk associated with such a drastic change it would stop pharmaceutical CEOs from running the industry as if it were a hedge fund operation. There is the high publicized case of Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager turned pharmaceutical CEO who raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat AIDs patients, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet

This shows that insurance companies can influence the prices placed by pharmaceutical companies. If all insurance companies unified to stop purchasing overly priced medications and shopped around to cover medications from companies with the lowest price, they could create a drive to pressure pharmaceutical companies to have competing lower prices. They could also demand transparency in the cost of medications, helping bring awareness to the American consumer.

It has been found through different resources that prescription drugs or medicine prices are the highest in United States. As compared to other countries such as those that are in the phase of development, also agree that the prescription drugs or medicine costs are highest in America than any other part of the world. Along with this, there has been a huge debate on the topic or issue of prescription drugs as that will reform the health care systems. Also, upon comparison with the wealthy nations of the world such as Germany, Canada, and Japan, United States has the unfortunate honor of paying the highest rates or costs for medicines. Moreover, evaluation of the same situation lead to a conclusion that there are