Prescription Drugs are Now the Fastest Growing Part of the Nation's Health Care Bill

Literature

Spending for health care and for prescription drugs has significantly increased over the 1980–2003 period; the patients who have insurance coverage in addition to Medicare, on average, spent more on health care and prescription drugs than those who have Medicare coverage only. Health care and prescription drugs costs have skyrocketed over the last several years. No doubt the extremely high cost of prescription drugs is one of the main factors affecting the overall cost of health care today (Jean, 15-25). No one is immune from these rising costs. Insurance companies, government, private corporations, and ultimately individual consumers are all affected.

“The recent association survey said that 64 percent of health-care benefits purchasers cite prescription drugs as the leading reason for increasing health-care costs nationwide. Of that group, 62 percent said that increased direct-to-consumer advertising is the main cause for the continued dramatic rise in pharmaceutical” (Georganne, 1-2). Prescription drug expenses account for as much as those spent on physician care, vision care services, and medical supplies combined. Many patients, especially seniors with low income and those with multiple health problems, often must make a difficult choice between health care and other consumption needs. According to the American Enterprise Institute, more than 10 percent of seniors spend up to $5,000 annually on prescription drugs and nearly one-fourth of Medicare beneficiaries are living on less than $600 per month.

The dramatic rise in prescription drug costs in recent years has sparked a debate (Jean, 15-25). Some argue that it would be better off if prescription drugs were covered under Medicare. Others cite the size of Medicare’s current financial liabilities and contend that such a plan would wastefully duplicate coverage that nearly 3 in 4 patients already have through Medicaid and private insurance (Thomas, 34-41). This group of debaters prefers to allow patients to choose their health coverage in the market and giving them tax-advantaged ways of saving to cover their own health expenses such as using a Roth IRA as a medical savings account. Still others would target the pharmaceutical companies themselves, requiring price controls or shorter periods of patent protection.

Three Most Significant Changes

Another reason prescription drug costs are so high is that during the 1999-2000 election cycle the pharmaceutical industry spent a record $262 million to prevent Congress from passing legislation approving Medicare drug benefits. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry worries that Medicare drug legislation could produce significant discounted prices in the extremely profitable senior citizen market area (Jean, 15-25). Still another explanation advanced by ‘The Center for Studying Health System Change’ is that managed care no longer holds hospital-running costs in check. Due to many patient protests, managed care cost-containment policies are now ‘in full retreat’. To control the counterattacks against the managed care industry, managed care organizations are reducing their reliance on cost-control mechanisms such as pre-authorization, gatekeepers and capitation.

Many other issues contribute to the high cost of the financial burden and prescription drugs that taxpayers bear to ensure that lifesaving drugs are available to low and fixed income persons, one of those factors involves illegal industry actions that result in higher drug prices. In May 2002, Attorney General of Washington Christine Gregoire pledged to continue aggressively pursuing vitamin and drug manufacturers who illegally manipulate the availability and price of their products. Since then, the office has joined other states in settlements and lawsuits with several major pharmaceutical companies. Illegal activities included the use of patent laws to keep generic versions, less expensive, of various drugs off the market.

Opinion Summary

In a country like United States that has enough resources to provide for all, relegating health care to the market is nothing less than turning our backs on the responsibility we have toward our communities. We need a single payer plan that will provide affordable and successful health care for everyone. Single payer keeps health care delivery in the private sector, but eliminates insurance companies as the financier. Instead, the government would pay all health care bills.

As long as health care issue is treated as a commodity, we will continue to find ourselves in the unconscionable situation of trying to measure in dollars the value of a one’s health (Thomas, 34-41). There are better ways. It is time to kill the sacred cow of market economics when it comes to health care issue in this great country. Despite the toll of skyrocketing drug costs, the president and Congress have failed to address this serious problem. The House of Representatives passed a phony prescription drug plan—not a guaranteed benefit under Medicare—that holds only false hope. Congress and the president should get behind a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare, which guarantees comprehensive and affordable coverage for all citizens.

Conclusion

“The cost of prescription drug coverage will continue to increase at a rate of nearly 20% in 2003, and drug trends remain the fastest rising cost component of health care plans” (Web, 1). Every year, about 90 percent of Medicare beneficiaries get at least one prescription filled. But, the financial burden associated with prescription drug expenditures is not evenly distributed. Financial resources, health conditions, and access to health insurance that offers prescription drug coverage vary.

Although a supplemental health insurance policy can help defray out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs, not all people can afford this coverage.

Works Citied

Georganne Benjamin, Prescription Drug Costs Identified as Main Driver of Increasing U.S. Health-care Costs, 2002, page 1-2

Jean Carnahan, High Cost of Prescription Drugs: Hearing before the Special Committee on Aging, U.S. Senate, DIANE Publishing, 2003, page 15-25

R. M. Rubin and K. Koelln, Out-of-Pocket health expenditure

Differentials between elderly & Non-elderly Households, The Gerontologist, 1993, vol. 333 no. 5, pp. 595–602.

Thomas Moehrle, Expenditure Patterns of the Elderly: Workers and Non-workers Monthly Labor Review, May 1995, pp. 34–41.

Web, 1: Prescription Drug Coverage to Increase at a Rate of 20% in 2003

http://www.aishealth.com/DrugCosts/DCMRRx03.html

(August 31st 2003)