Prescription Price Crisis Article Review

As we advance in our healthcare system and continue to find cure for the deadly diseases we are also faced with prescription drug prices rising much faster than they were a few years back. Drug prices are increasing at an unmaintainable rate without any sign of reduction. People who are heavily affected by this rise are mostly elderly citizens and also the poor of this country because they can barely afford these expenses. These people either have no money to pay for their copays or no health insurances at all.

Nicholas Capaldi (2003) addresses another issue within the pharmaceutical industry, stating that it is caught up in a “perfect storm.” He also mentions how there are a various of interest groups that have conspired to present this industry as profiteers who “……(a) spend obscene sums on marketing1 instead of research, (b) engage in differential pricing at home and abroad in an effort to gouge the American consumer, and (c) deprive developing countries of life-saving medicines” (2003). Because of the high costs of medications, as a result, this is forcing the pharmaceutical industry to make medications more affordable to consumers.

Anyone who has purchased prescription medications has probably wondered why they cost so much, and rightfully so. Medication prices in the United States have been on a steady increase for decades, however, prices have been drastically increasing as of recent. Pharmaceutical companies have tried to justify these price increases due to the demand, the high cost of research, and the high costs of development and approval. Notwithstanding, the extent to which the prices have increased is not justifiable. Americans should be against these high medication prices and take action because pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of our healthcare system in order to capitalize from the sick. In order shed some light on this issue, the magnitude, scope, and consequences of these prices must be examined.

The prices of prescription drugs in the United States are by far the highest in the world. [1] On average, Europeans pay 40% less than Americans for the same medications. [2] Consumers have been resorting to several ways, sometimes putting themselves in harm’s way, to alleviate the burden of high prescription drug costs. Some buy their medications online or cross the borders to neighboring countries so they would be able to afford buying their needed medications. Others have resorted to the illegal act of selling their unused medications in online forums just to recover part of their expenses. Many factors contribute to the increased drug prices in the United States including research and

Everybody reaches out of pocket to pay for different prescription drugs. Parents for children, elderly for health conditions, and pet owners for pets, but there is one extensive concern; the price and outcomes. Transiently, it may be common for someone to come out of pocket for some prescriptions, but when people draw out of pocket every time just to pick up a prescription drug, it becomes annoying and upsetting. Pharmaceutical companies like CVS and Walgreens collect over $1,000,000 dollars just from gouging people for medications. According to David Belk (M.D.), Pharmacies buy medication in mass from pharmaceutical corporations and suppliers, then sell for a profit. What everyone is trying to ask the companies though is why. Why would a top-producing company like CVS or Walgreens sell expensive medications to a group of people like the elderly for profit?

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.

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,

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans use prescribed drugs, for several reasons, everyday. Prescription drugs have become a huge problem to America's health care system due to their exponentially rising price - so America must ask ourselves why prescribed drugs are so expensive, how these prices affect us, and how we can fix these dangerously high prices.

Whether you love it, hate it, support it, or detest it The Affordable Care Act as it stands, has been making waves across both news headlines and the medical community alike. For the most part, the focus of the act has been placed on the impact it will have on the consumer or the patient. However, the pharmaceutical division of the medical community is among the groups that are most impacted by the Affordable Care Act. In particular, retail pharmacies are feeling the effects of the act via the reimbursements and provisions surrounding the reimbursement policies that have been altered with the passing of the Affordable Care Act. Reimbursements and the provisions implemented upon retail pharmacies by the Affordable Care Act could prove to be detrimental towards the success and profits gained by private retail pharmacies.

The rising cost of prescriptions in the United States has become a huge threat to patients and to owners of hospitals. Most pharmacy companies are buying drugs that are undervalued, then they are raising the prices up to gain more profit. Even some companies admit to rising the cost up 212% (AHA, 2015). The more the cost of prescriptions go up, the greater chance there is that people will give up on taking the drugs and just suffer through or buy over the counter medicines. The purpose of this paper is the inform people of the affects and consequences of these drugs beginning to rise in costs. Lives can

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).

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.

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

Background: Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. Drug costs increased 12.6 percent last year, more than double the rise in overall medical costs. A new Kaiser Health poll shows that most Americans think prescription drug costs in this country are unreasonable, and that drug companies put profits before people.1 Take the example of albendazole which is broad spectrum anti-parasitic drug. In late 2010, the listed average wholesale price for albendazole was $5.92 per typical daily dose in the United States and less than $1 per typical daily dose overseas. By 2013, the listed typical daily dose price for USA market had increased to $119.58. Medicaid data show that spending on albendazole increased from less than $100,000 per year in 2008, when the average cost was $36.10 per prescription, to more than $7.5 million in 2013, when the average cost was $241.30 per prescription2. Albendazole is a very basic medicine but if we take the case of oncology medicines we are going to realize that oncology drugs have become synonymous with extremely high cost. The average cancer drug price for approximately 1 year of therapy was less than 10,000 per year in 2010 and had increased to $30,000 to $50,000 by 2005. In 2012, 12 of the 13 new drugs approved for cancer indications were priced above $100,000 per year of therapy. With typical out-of-pocket expenses of 20% to 30%, the financial burden would be $20,000 to 30,000 a year, nearly half of the average annual

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