Have you been thinking that your prescriptions are burning a bigger and bigger hole in your wallet? It’s not just you. Prescription medications in general are getting more expensive.
So, asking questions about expensive medicine is understandable and important. Asking the right questions about medical costs can help save you money.
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Who Is Responsible for Expensive Medicine?
One recent news story shed some light on this topic. A young pharmaceutical CEO made a lot of enemies by buying the rights to a drug and then drastically raising its price. While these types of things happen, it usually isn’t just one person driving up your bill.
Research Costs
- Developing and testing medicine is a long and costly process. A big slice of the price you pay goes towards recovering those costs. The pills you eventually buy usually only cost a few cents to make.
No Competition
- If a certain pill has a monopoly on its target audience, its owners can drive up its price. This is what happened in the news story we mentioned above. Daraprim is the only drug that treats a certain AIDS-related condition. A company bought the rights to it and increased the price by 5,000%.
No Regulation
- There is no regulation on prescription drug prices in the United States. This is another explanation for expensive medicine. Pharmaceutical companies have free reign when it comes to setting prices.
Investments
- Pharmaceutical Economics professor Joel Hay explains that investors see little benefit in drugs that treat millions of people. The less people there are buying the drug, the less opposition there is to high prices.
“Drug companies are for-profit companies obligated to make money for their stockholders, they’re not virtuous charitable organizations.” – Joel Hay
What Can I Do to Save Money?
Many drugs have cheaper, generic alternatives to the brand names. Talk to your doctor about your options for less expensive medicine.
If the medicine you use to recover from an injury is raiding your wallet, you may be able to recover your losses. Insurance companies and people are responsible for accidents they cause, and their consequences. If you need help with an injury case, contact us for a free consultation.
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