March 19, 2007
Earth Times
A recent poll in Massachusetts shows that 72% of its residents want prescription drugs to be included in its new health care proposals, and would be happy to pay twenty to $40.00 extra for drug coverage.
This comes close on the heels of findings made by the Center for Studying Health System Change that the number of people who have chronic health conditions and yet often skip their medical refills or take less than the prescribed daily dose for financial reasons, is steadily rising. Whether it is to save money or for other reasons, skipping medicines, has been linked to an increased risk of other ailments.
Prescription drugs are an important part of modern medicine. They avert the suffering and death of people of all ages suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, depression, cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
These medications are not usually cheap. The Kaiser family foundation states that in 2006, over 10% of the people who are part of Medicare's prescription drug plan paid hundreds of dollars out of their pockets for their own prescription drugs.
People without health insurance, of course, have to pay for the prescription drugs themselves. According to the Census Bureau it was found in 2006 that 46.6 million people, which works out to 15.9% of the local American population, do not have health insurance. Besides this, as was discovered in the Commonwealth Fund survey in 2005, 16 million Americans are not insured. Over 10% of their salaries are spent on medical care.
Now legislators, both Republicans and Democrats are supporting legislation that will allow drugs to be imported from other industrialized countries such as Canada. Drugs are often cheaper in these countries but have not been imported so far due to restrictions by the pharmaceutical group and the Food and Drug Administration.
In a survey that it released this month, IMS Health found that prescription drug sales have risen by 8.3% to nearly $300 billion in 2006. Consumer advocates now recommend that people themselves work at finding solutions to reducing their expenditure on prescription drugs such as mail order health plans, finding out about free plans they are eligible for and ensuring that they are only taking medications they really need.
From the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, assistant professor of family medicine Dr. Derjung Mimi Tarn, says, “…it is up to the patient to make the physician and pharmacist aware."