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.
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.
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 suffering for many years before being diagnosed with a chronic illness, and told that there is no cure for the disease that has already burdened you for all this time. Yes, there are treatments and medications for most illnesses, yet these medications are extremely costly and the costs can add up quickly.
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.
This drug which costs a little of $115 per treatment; coupled with the record number of drug shortages in the United States is problematic.
Frech cited several keys to the high costs here including marketing by pharmaceutical companies; the incredible number (around 20 percent) of the people who work in the medical field but never come into contact with any patient and the lack of wellness programs and poor lifestyle
As mentioned above in section 1a, investigational drugs can be extremely costly, sometimes priced at over $1000 per pill. Therefore, the economic impact of developmental treatment use on patients may vary based on two key factors: the drug companies and the insurance companies. As discussed earlier,
“The Bitter Pill: Why medical bills are killing us” written by Steven Brill delves into the question as to why medical bills are so high. As Brill begins his research he analyzed bills from hospitals, doctors, and drug companies. Additionally, he interviewed doctors, Medicare and insurance administrators, and gathered patient stories across the nation. He found that the United States spent more money on healthcare than any other developed countries, he stated “We may be shocked at the $60 billion price tag for cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy, [however], we spent almost that much last week on healthcare” (Brill 2013). He also noted “yet in every measurable way, the results our healthcare system produces are no better and often worse than the outcomes in those countries” (Brill 2013). From the charts and graphs that Brill provided shows that the sixty percent of personal bankruptcy filings per year are related to medical bills. Life expectancy in the United States is the lowest amongst the countries that spend most on healthcare, our infant mortality rank is fiftieth in the world, and that one pill cost as much as seven pills in other developed countries such as France. Brill found that in many similar cases, like that ones he presented in the article, Medicare would have at least paid for a small portion of the bill. However, those who don’t qualify for Medicaid and don’t have insurance are often asked to pay excessive prices.
The price of the prescriptions for mental illness The amount of money the people that had a mental illness have to pay is a large amount money that they have to pay for treatments and prescriptions. Medicare covered 29 cents of every dollar spent on prescription drugs in 2014, up from less than 2 cents in 2004. Medicaid covered 10 cents of every dollar spent on prescription drugs in 2014, up from less than 19 cents in 2004. The customers in 2004 had to pay 25 cents of every dollar spent on prescription, in 2014 the prices when down to 15 cents of every dollar spent on prescription. The share of spreading covered by private insurers shrank from 49 cents to 43 cents. At least 3.7 million Americans who are currently
There are often expenses that are not planned for, especially when it comes to healthcare. Recently, there has been a spike in the cost of a commonly-used device to treat many severe allergic reactions: The EpiPen. The EpiPen is an epinephrine auto-injector that is used to treat anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock is “a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that occurs within seconds or minutes of exposure to an allergen” (Mayo). A pack of two EpiPens can cost around six-hundred dollars, while it only costs around fifteen dollars to create one. (Mangan) Since Mylan NV, the maker of EpiPens, “acquired the rights to the drug in 2007, it’s raised the per-dose list price from about $50 a shot to $304... The EpiPen now generates about $1 billion a year for Mylan” (). In addition, in 2013, the U.S. government “passed a law that gave funding preferences for asthma treatment grants to states that maintained an emergency supply of EpiPens” (NYTimes). The distribution of the product is definitively limited to those willing and able to pay a copious sum for a drug that might save one’s life. Therefore, a solution to this limitation must be made in order to produce more adequate healthcare.The Epipen distribution system can be fixed in a variety of ways that benefit either the consumer or the company, but still result in an increase in the number of people who can access the medicine, which is important for many reasons. The best solution to this situation would
A doctor is familiar with something that many others may not be too familiar with, and that is the Hippocratic Oath. If you are to look at said oath, it says nothing about kickbacks from drug companies to push this new prescription. There is nothing about how expensive a treatment is, but what it does talk about caring for others in the Hippocratic Oath. It does specify what a doctor does as something that is done for the benefit of the sick. In 1964, Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, wrote a version of the oath that talks about how a doctor should care for
“My god, don’t shoot”, was a famous quote stated by the one and only Soapy Smith. The 100,000 people that went to the Klondike were known as the common people, who were looking for gold. They mainly went in the late 1800’s, in the Klondike of Alaska. Why did they go, you might ask? The gold seekers went to strike it rich and find gold to become rich. It was a treacherous journey, so they went by boat, train, or they walked.
From his small sample of the population, one in four patients had died. Many of those who hadn't returned for multiple treatments, to the average tune of one-half million dollars each. Whether the patient has Medicaid or private insurance, those costs are exorbitant for those who are not caring for themselves outside of the
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.