Over the past few decades, health costs have been drastically increasing. Some underlying factors which contribute to this cause are the higher prices of prescription medication, higher prices of medical services, and higher costs of hospital administration. Many Americans cannot afford the proper health care or even health insurance in order to maintain their health. This surge in costs is affecting many lives of Americans and is a problem that needs to be addressed.
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One in four Americans have trouble paying for their prescribed medication. The U.S. allows drug manufacturers to charge their own determined price for a particular product, allowing any drug that has been properly tested and proven as safe to enter the market. As a result, the concept of value and market price is completely irrelevant and disregarded. Big Pharma companies increase their prices as much as they possibly can in order to increase profit. There is no price competition because there are no real fixed costs for medical services. Routinely paid 10X more than "standard" levels are patients who are out of the network or uninsured. Even so, patients with insurance are still faced with copayments and additional fees. With no practical way for consumers to protect themselves against excessive medical bills, people are rationing their medications and insulin and being deprived of extra time to live.
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First, the prices of new drugs, especially specialty drugs, are often astronomically high and unrelated to their added value. Specialty drugs, including autoimmune and many cancers, are medications that treat complex, chronic or life threatening disorders. These are often more difficult than other prescription drugs to produce, require special care or management, or need continuous supervision and medical help. Although companies are invoking these obstacles to explain the sky-high prices for specialty medications, start-up prices are still excessive: they are 37 times more costly on average than conventional prescription drugs.
The second problem that meaningful drug legislation must address is drug manufacturers boosting their profits through price gouging of existing drugs. By definition, these price increases are largely unrelated to value or innovation because the drugs have already been developed.
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Citizens are unjustly getting exploited by big name pharmaceutical companies, at the cost of their lives and well-being. Nobody asks for health problems; it isn't their fault they need medication in order to help them live their lives. Many people are affected: Friends, family, neighbors, and more, may depend on prescription drugs in their everyday lives. With these unreasonable prices, they are forced to skip medication filings, and ration their medication in order to make ends meet for themselves and their families. People have died due to the greed and corruption of already wealthy private corporations. Children have lost mothers and fathers, grandparents, friends, to these evil capitalistic values of the industry. Such conditions are easily maintainable through these medications, however the complications of money prevent people from utilizing them. Everyone deserves the right of health and well being and patients and communities should always be placed before money. It is not fair that only those who can afford such treatments deserve them. As a collective community, we should do what we can to help those in need, because when it comes to us, we would want others to do the same.
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