$300,000 a year is too much money to pay for a medication because some people don’t have enough money to afford $300,000 of medication. A drug called Kalydeco helps people who suffer from cystic fibrosis, a lung disease by attacking symptoms such as pain in the abdomen. According to “The $300,000 drug” it states, “It’s more than $300,000 a year. Because patients will likely be taking the drug for the rest of their lives, it could cost millions of dollars to keep one patient on Kalydeco.” This reveals that the disease can cost millions because those affected by the disease will most likely be using it their whole life. Not everyone is fortunate enough to afford not only Kalydeco as well as basic necessities like food and clothes. There are also people who have more than one disease and need medication for that disease too.
In 2013, pharmaceutical cost per capita in the US was $1,112 compared to Switzerland’s $730. Private insurance plans widely vary on medication coverage. However, there are programs that are no cost to the individual that can decrease the cost of medications for people without
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.
This topic is important because I stated before there are other human beings out there that are dying and instead of getting the treatment they need they are forced to live with the disease until they die, and pharmaceutical companies are now charging an arm and a leg. Take the medication Daraprim, a medication that is given to AIDs patients it used to cost a dollar a pill something that most individuals could pay, that was until 2010 when the company CorePharma bought the rights and started charging 13.50 a pill. (CNN Money) This amount is still semi reasonable for individuals in America, while those in Africa well if they couldn’t pay for it before then they certainly won’t be able to buy it now. (CNN Money) CorePharma was once lead by Martin Shkreli the man who is now awaiting sentencing because he was charged with fraud and conspiracy (Business Insider). This same man raised the medication again from thirteen dollars and fifteen cents up to seven hundred fifty dollars a pill, that is a five-hundred percent increase. (CNN Money). They then dropped the price in half so now pill costs
This drug which costs a little of $115 per treatment; coupled with the record number of drug shortages in the United States is problematic.
When it comes to health care, cost is one of the biggest problems. Something needs to be done in order to make it possible for patients, families, and businesses to be able to afford health care. US does not always spend health care dollars in the most productive way. The cost of cancer treatments alone can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the only way to pay for that is to raise the cost of the insurance to the patients. Cost is defined as the “price” of healthcare. The “price” or cost can come from various places such as, the physician’s bill, the cost of prescriptions, as well as what the employers pay to cover their employees. The cost of treatments, emergency room visits, medicines, the cost of newest technology and etc. is what is making our increase in cost rapidly. The rising costs leads to becoming a financial burden to families, even the ones that have health insurance, which can typically result in individuals not receiving the health services that they need.
burns through $2,797 more every individual consistently than other industrialized nations, despite the fact that 47 million of those individuals are uninsured so the U.S. spends more is that simply the value we pay for having the free decision of suppliers and driving the trends in therapeutic innovation. Not really because no less than 30 percent of all delivered human services administrations are thought to be pointless on the grounds that they do not make very sick individuals any healthier. As an illustration, we should consider Medicare spending. One study contrasted patients and comparable afflictions in high-spending Medicare areas and low-spending Medicare districts. Those patients in the high-spending ranges, who saw their specialist all the more regularly and spent more days in the health facilities, had an expanded risk of biting the dust when contrasted with patients in the lower-spending territories who had the same ailment. It's as though heading off to the specialist in this nation can make a man significantly more debilitated, maybe on the grounds that a patient runs the danger of experiencing unnecessary treatment that correct only the symptoms and not the disease (PBS,
The journalist Nadia Kounang further explains the differences between what the U.S pays on drugs and other similar developed countries, in the article Why pharmaceuticals are cheaper abroad. Kounang displays how much American need to pay for Gleevec (cancer medication) which is $6,214 (per month/per customer) whereas in Canada patients only have to pay $1,141 and in the U.K $2,697 (Kounang 1). These prices are the result of different organizations setting different price ranges with drug companies (U.S.A), and these enables American insurance companies to take advantage of it (Kounang 1). While in other countries there are not as many organizations, so this helps to set a deal of a price that benefit both the drug company and consumers (Kounang). Strictly speaking, by having these different medical insurance companies it has made it difficult for patients to afford their medication because there is no singular organization that can set drug price ranges with pharmaceuticals, while in other countries they don’t a variety of different medical insurances which enables the country to provide treatments that its citizens can afford. Thereby, if the government does not fully cooperates with other medical insurances, lowering the cost of medication will be difficult without affecting research and development. And as a result people who can not afford them will still struggle to obtain their required prescriptions.
For patients with chronic conditions, costs, even with insurance, can add up very quickly with numerous doctor’s visits, emergency room visits, and hospital admissions. The CDC (2016), states, “Treating people with chronic diseases accounts for 86% of the nation’s health care costs” (Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Despite the amount of time and money spent preventing and treating
Not only are patients impacted by this issue, but so is the healthcare system. Consumer reports estimates that “$200 billion per year is spent in the U.S. on the unnecessary and improper use of medication, for the drugs themselves and related medical costs, according to the market research firm IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics” (Carr, T. 2017). America’s health care is very expensive and we can save
Over the last several years, beginning approximately around 2002 and reaching an all-time impossible high in 2016, prescribed drugs such as EpiPen, a life-saving allergy medication, or Bavencio, a cancer drug approved in March, or even older drugs such as insulin that has been around since 2002, have tripled in prices. Many drugs used for cancer, muscle dystrophy, bladder treatment, and more have prices ranging from $150,000 - $300,000 - a year. The director of health services research for the AARP Public Policy Institute, Leigh Purvis, says: “the simple answer is because there’s nothing stopping them”, referring to these pharmaceutical companies. Unlike many countries, The United States does not regulate drug prices, resulting in drug companies being able to charge whatever price they please. AARP Bulletin stated: “The supply of a newer medicine, however, is controlled entirely by the drug manufacturer that holds the patent rights. That gives the manufacturer a monopoly on the drug for the 20-year life of the patent. During that time, it is free to raise the price as frequently and as much as the market will bear.” AARP - The Ways of Drug Pricing.
A lot of people will not succumb to getting help with their health, as they just cannot afford to pay for the treatments or operations themselves. Thousands of dollars are spent out of their own pockets to allow them the “luxury” of getting good healthcare. Imagine having to decide whether to go ahead with an operation to remove an appendix? For example the average appendectomy costs around $33,000. (Castillo) Heaven forbid a patient needs a heart by-pass surgery. The cost for this without insurance is an average of $117,094 and heart valve replacement cost an average of $164,238. (American Heart Association) Deny a loved one a life-saving surgery or use the money to buy your next
In 2014, prescription drug costs made up 9.8% of total annual health care expenditures; retail prescription drug spending accounted for $297.7 billion (Hemphill, 2017). The need for prescription medication will continue to increase as the population ages. Chronic disease is also on the rise, and the pharmaceutical industry is under pressure to innovate. Healthcare cost are out of control, and medication seems to be the only solution to try and contain the costs. Doctors no longer focus on teaching patients how to care for themselves naturally. There are many herbs and supplements that can take the place of a prescription, but doctors write prescriptions for their own personal gain.
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 the business of drug production over the years, there have been astronomical gains in the technology of pharmaceutical drugs. More and more drugs are being made for diseases and viruses each day, and there are many more drugs still undergoing research and testing. These "miracle" drugs are expensive, however, and many Americans cannot afford these prices.
Why is there over 120 thousand people waiting on an organ transplant? Why are there 44 million uninsured people in the United States alone? Why is it that 1 in 10 americans cannot afford their medical medications? All simply answered by the fact that it’s all too expensive. The poverty level, according to USDA 2015, in the United States for a family of four is $24 thousand. With so many conditions, cancers, and diseases, everyone should have equal health opportunity, but this is not the case. In turn, the population turns to alternative sources of help: such as the Black Market.