Who would have thought that drug companies could put such a high price on living only to line their own pockets? Americans pay, substantially, more for prescription medications than the rest of the world. These drugs do no good to the people who are prescribed them if they aren’t able to afford them. In 2013, per capita spending on prescriptions was $858 compared with an average of $400 in 19 other industrialized countries. That’s more than double the average spending of other high income countries for the same medications. Every year from 2006 to 2015 the retail prices for highly used brand named drugs increased substantially faster than general inflation. With the prices of drugs increasing at a faster rate than inflation the ability to pay …show more content…
In many other developed countries drug prices aren’t nearly as high and government setting limits and pricing for many reasons seems to be a common aspect of keeping costs reasonable. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices would save billions of dollars in the first year alone. There are roughly 57 million Medicare beneficiaries and the ability to negotiate the prices 57 million Americans pay for prescriptions would have a major impact on medication adherence, therefore increasing the money patients spend for the medications due to filling it every month on time. With at least half of older Americans saying they didn’t fill a prescription due to its cost, companies lose out on any profits. If instead they made the medications more affordable then more people would actually fill their medications on time every time. The drug companies may not make as much profit per individual sale but overall the number of sales can only increase if less people forfeit treatment due to