Health Care Reform Project Part 1
David Chambliss
HCS/440 - Economics
January 12, 2016
Professor Kamal Faour

Health Care Reform Project Part 1

The Price of Progress: Drugs In The Health Care Market This is a review of the above fore mentioned article. The U.S. health care system in the new century comes with good and bad news both stemming from the same source; medical innovation. The good news: life expectancy and health status in the United States are improving; infant mortality is declining and disability rates among the elderly have been falling. These improvements all point to one source: major pharmaceutical breakthroughs in the 1990s. The bad news: This medical progress is expensive meaning better medicine increases cost in the long run. Debate over our specific choices seems always to devolve back to a list of competing alternatives: restrict patient access; shift costs to the recipients of progress; shift risk to providers; or share through higher premiums the cost increases.
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Unnecessary Regulations That Increase Prescription Drug Cost

This is a review of the above fore mentioned article. As drug coverage has become more widespread, so too have calls to impose additional regulations on drug plans and the firms managing them. A reason sometimes given for increasing drug plan regulation is the need for transparency to prevent drug plan managers from excessive mark-ups for drugs at the expense of patients and health plans. In the pursuit of protecting consumers, there are frequent calls for state and federal lawmakers to enact laws that hamper the efficient management of prescription drug benefits. Specialized firms called pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) help plan sponsors design and manage drug benefits, including which drugs are covered and which pharmacies participate in the drug plan. Because state pharmacy boards are controlled by pharmacists, giving them authority over drug plans creates conflicts of interest that could undermine drug plans’ ability to negotiate lower prices with pharmacy networks.

How Prescription Drug Abuse Cost You Money

This is a review of the above fore mentioned article. Over the past decade prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has increased rapidly, to the point that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now labels the problem an "epidemic." Of particular concern are prescription painkillers like methadone, oxycodone, and hydrocodone, which the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud describes as "by far" the most-abused prescription drugs. Oxycodone and hydrocodone are commonly marketed under the brand names OxyContin and Vicodin, respectively. As the human costs mount, so too do the economic ones. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, an alliance of consumer groups, insurance companies and government agencies, put the cost of prescription painkiller abuse for insurers at up to $72.5 billion in a 2007 study, and other reports show the abuse of such drugs has risen in the years since. Medicare and private insurers are also hit for the costs of the drugs themselves, which abusers accumulate by obtaining multiple prescriptions or by visiting unscrupulous distributors known as "pill mills." "These costs get passed on to average Americans in the form of higher premiums," said Jim Quiggle, communications director for the coalition. "When it comes to Medicare, these are essentially taxpayer dollars that are being stolen.

References
Herrick, D. (2013, March). Unnecessary regulations that increase prescription drug cost. NCPA, (346), . Retrieved from http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st346
Kleinke, J.D. (2001, September). The price of progress: Drugs in the health care market. Health Affairs, 20(5), 43-60. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.20.5.43
O'Tool, J. (2012, Febuary). How prescription drug abuse cost you money. CNN MONEY, (), . Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/22/news/economy/prescription_drug_abuse/