How are Prescripton Drugs Priced and How Does This Concern Most Americans

Pricing of Prescription Drugs and how it Concerns most Americans
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Pricing of Prescription Drugs and its Concern to most Americans
Pharmaceutical companies have found themselves on the receiving end for improper pricing of prescription drugs. For instance, the decision by Turing Company to increase the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 created a public outcry prompting questions on how to solve the dilemma surrounding drug pricing. Research shows that there has been numerous fraudulent pricing of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical companies in the United States (Bothanwala & Bonthra, 2017). This calls for new strategies through which drug price increases can be solved. Therefore, with the numerous cases of an improper rise in drug prices by pharmaceutical companies in the United States, the government, regulatory bodies, and stakeholders must brainstorm decisions regarding drug pricing ethics. This will include critical decisions that might not gain acceptance by some pharmaceutical companies. However, these decisions have to be made for the good of the public.
Unscrupulous pricing of prescription drugs has raised a lot of concern from the U.S media and the public. Pharmaceutical companies have been blamed for raising the prices of medicines far much beyond the rate of inflation. This paper looks into the unethical pricing of prescription drugs in the United States (Leopold, Chambers & Wagner, 2016). Most companies have been blamed for increasing the price of drugs such as Daraprim, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, from $13.50 to $750. This represented a 5000 percent increase. In such instances, companies’ CEOs are accused of being at the center of massive price changes without providing valid reasons for doing so. Turing is one of the companies that have to take the center-stage upon which such accusations have been labeled (Jenkins, 2019). However, the overall price of drugs increases by 10 percent every year in the United States, which is 9 percent more than the rate of inflation. Such increases have made the public and other stakeholders to question the moral standards of U.S pharmaceutical companies. There is a need to stop this unethical behavior to enable Americans to access drugs at affordable rates.
Prescription drugs are an integral element of healthcare since patients depend on pills to remain healthy. However, the costs of prescription drugs have unfortunately increased exponentially in the past years, with the price of a single drug often surpassing an average American's annual income. In effect, this puts a heavy burden not only on employers but also on consumer premiums (Kesselheim, Avorn, & Sarpatwari, 2016). This is important to me because, as we are all older, I will eventually be paying triple if not quadruple the cost for my medication if I have to be on any. That will put a burden on me financially or possibly a burden on my family to have to help me pay for them.
The price of prescription drugs is a huge healthcare concern for many Americans. Trying to figure out a situation such as the high cost of prescription drugs would be a daunting task, but one that could help us understand the reasoning behind these high costs. I did come across a study that could help us better understand this problematic issue (Leopold, Chambers & Wagner, 2016). Researchers conducted extensive reviews on studies from previous publications to explain and simplify the leading cause of high costs of pricing of prescription drugs in the United States and the viable approaches that can be used to address it (Dershowitz, 2019). The researchers established that the issue has a complicated and far-reaching root and published their study in the JAMA, a United States journal of Medical Association. The study found five critical aspects of the high prices of prescription drugs in the United States.
The finding established that, unlike other parts of the world, drug manufacturers in the United States set the prices for their products (Kesselheim, Avorn, & Sarpatwari, 2016). Research shows that most countries worldwide have well-established national health programs with government agencies that help regulate the prices of prescription drugs. Such entities either decide not to cater to drugs whose costs appear to be expensive or by negotiating drugs (Buckley & Tuama, 2005). However, research shows that the United States does not have this type of negotiation; hence, drug manufacturers can set high and exploitative costs on drugs. Secondly, Kesselheim, Avorn, and Sarpatwari (2016) argue that the United States permits “government-protected monopolies” in the pharmaceutical industries to produce medicines; hence, preventing the introduction of generic drugs that can reduce the prices of drugs in the market. Kesselheim, Avorn, and Sarpatwari further claim that the United States has a patent framework that allows manufacturers of medicines to be sole producers and suppliers of the patented drug for twenty years in an attempt to promote innovation. The system, per se, facilitates the high pricing of prescription drugs.
Thirdly, the study concluded that the FDA takes a disproportionately long time to approve and give a green light on the use of generic drugs. Kesselheim, Avorn, and Sarpatwari (2016) claim that application backlogs are waiting for approval by the FDA leading to undue and unwarranted delays of up to five years before manufacturers of generic drugs can receive their authorization to legalize their drugs against the existing patents (Bothanwala, & Bothra, 2017). The fourth finding established by researchers indicates that the process of pricing prescription drugs is not, per se, justified by R&D.
The fifth and final finding of the study established that benevolent federal policies and state acts limit the generic medicines' ability to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. The study found out that pharmacists in around twenty-six states of America are expected by the law to liaise and get the consent of patients before switching or administering generic drugs. Kesselheim, Avorn, and Sarpatwari (2016) note that this costs Medicaid around $19.8 million per year for only one prescription: simvastatin, also called a statin, whose brand name is Zocor. Further study indicates that the prices of such drugs are usually high since pharmacists do not seek for patients’ consent; hence, Medicaid pays for expensive brands even when there are cheaper brands available in the market (D...