Prescription Drugs And The United States Essay

The utilization of prescription drugs has increased across all age groups in the US, with 50% of Americans taking at least one prescription drug (Rice & Unruh, 2016). This can be attributed to physician-induced demand, substitution of pharmaceuticals for other medical regimens, commercialization of the products, increase in the aging population and drug insurance coverage, and also the increase in chronic conditions. Lathan discusses the startling fact that the rate increase of prescription drugs purchased was considerably higher in contrast to the US population growth - 71% and 9% respectively (Rice & Unruh, 2016, p. 264).

Pharmaceutical companies are provided with temporary monopoly rights on the production of new drugs which result in a higher cost on consumers. If competing companies were allowed to produce generic forms of those drugs, consumers will be able to afford those medications even in cases where those consumers have no insurance coverage. The company responsible for developing and inventing the original medication could be offered incentives to invent in the future by either obtaining tax breaks or NIH funding for future research. They could even be offered a percentage of the sales of the generic drugs. Economist Gary S. Becker advocates dropping many FDA requirements that, in his opinion, provide no additional safety measures but rather delay the development of new drugs.[12] Betamethasone, for example, has been part of the standard prenatal care in Europe since the late 1970’s while it got adopted in the U.S. after 1997. On many occasions, the FDA ignores all scientific evidence concerning certain drugs because the manufacturer did not follow their mandated bureaucratic standards.

One added reason could be the current high number of mergers in the industry. Which in the long run leads to less competition, driving the innovation down and the prices up. In the United States, there are no regulatory efforts to stop the companies for charging so much. They are one of the only nations that believes in a free market for drug pricing. They are only one of two countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. As of today the United States does not import drugs from

affordable, the reform will likely increase the volume of drugs used in the U.S. — prescription rates are likely to rise, as will patients’ compliance to treatments.

One of the greatest problems we face in America today is the use and abuse of drugs in our country. It is important to find a solution that works within our country to combat the growing populations of our nation’s prisons, keep the supply of drugs under control, and have adequate prevention programs in place to help people who need treatment. Throughout reading the material for this course and the research conducted on the topics described in this paper, it is clear that the methods used in earlier years were not able to achieve the results we would like to see. Advocating for reform and the support of the American people can help with the desperate need for change.

In the modern age of technological and medical advancements such as organ transplants and robotic limbs, Americans have developed unrealistic expectations about prescription drugs. The false belief that the right pill in the right dosage can cure all has led to a national epidemic: over prescription. Since the 1970s, the average American’s expenditure on prescription drugs has doubled because not only are new treatments for almost every ailment now available, but they are also aggressively advertised on television, the internet, and social media. At the same time that the American population confronts health issues associated with rising age, obesity, and stress levels, prescription drugs promise a quick fix for everything from depression to acne to insomnia leading to a one pill fix all.

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

Many patients are finding it more difficult to afford their prescription medications. Comparing health care expenditures in the United States, prescription drug costs rank third compared to hospital expenses and physician services (Omojasola, Hernandez, Sansgiry, & Jones, 2012, p. 479). The rising cost of prescription drugs is concerning to many patients. “The high out-of-pocket prescription drug cost is associated with medication non-adherence and adverse health outcomes” Omojasola, et al., 2012, p. 480).

First, I will attempt to analyze the scope of this issue. According to a survey by The Commonwealth Fund, many prices have increased to such a point that in 2012 over twenty-one percent of adult Americans who were prescribed a medication skipped filling their prescriptions or skipped doses because of cost. In addition to this, in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that the prevalence of prescription drug use among people twenty and older had risen to fifty-nine percent in 2012. Using the United States Census Bureau, we can find that the United States population in 2012 yielded approximately 315,000,000 American citizens,

Pharmaceutical companies also defend the costs because of the patent laws. When a patent expires, a generic drug can be made and sold for lower cost. "Although

According to IMS Health (2015) over 4.3 billion prescription drugs were dispensed in the United States and Narconon (2015) reports that the decade ending in 2008 saw a four hundred percent increase in people seeking treatment for opioid addiction. Prescription drug abuse is an epidemic that transcends all socioeconomic boundaries in our society and is destroying lives, families, and whole communities, especially those most vulnerable; the physically and mentally ill. For one to better understand the full social implications of this issue, it is important to first review the history, impacts, and current debates around prescription drug abuse in the United States, and to then evaluate the connections that are formed by the culture, social roles, social inequalities, and social changes in our society.

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

The rise in costs of prescription medicines affects all sectors of the health care industry, including private insurers, public programs, and patients. Spending on prescription drugs continues to be an important health care concern, particularly in light of rising pharmaceutical costs, the aging population, and increased use of costly specialty drugs. In recent history, increases in prescription drug costs have outpaced other categories of health care spending, rising rapidly throughout the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s. (Kaiseredu.org, 2012).

Prescription drug prices rose three times faster than inflation in the decade between 1981 and 1991, making the pharmaceutical industry the nation's most profitable business. Prescription drugs even exceeded the rapidly rising inflation rate for all other medical services. They now represent at least 10% of all the medical

Being a member of pharmaceutical industry, it is important to know that what primary factors are there that have raised the costs of prescription drugs and medicines. Medicines are the primary treatment options for every doctor and prior to any operation or any major surgery, medication is prescribed in most of the cases, where appropriate, in order to avoid the complications of surgeries and operations. Also, while considering the economic outlook of people, it can be said that people are not that much well- off or maximum number of the economy is not rich enough that they can spend a huge amount of money in there treatment through medicines. Maximum position of the different classes of a society is held by the middle class people that do not have enough money to fulfill their needs so how are they going to make up or pay for the high rates of prescriptions drugs and medicines.