Prescription drug costs

Email this page to a friend

Want news about Prescription drug costs and more e-mailed to you? Click here for free email alerts

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs Melody Petersen See book keywords and concepts

Patients and the nation's medical system would have saved billions of dollars in prescription drug costs if it had not been for the magical power of Forest's corporate science, which had turned three failed studies into a blockbuster of a success. Nothing made it clearer that marketers had invaded medical science than when the global advertising agencies on Madison Avenue decided to jump into the work of performing drug experiments on humans.

The sales reps and the companies that employed them had hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues to protect. prescription drug costs were consuming more and more tax dollars in Iowa and every state in the country, a trend the pharmaceutical companies were working hard to extend. The year 2003 marked the first time that states spent more to pay the medical bills of the poor and the disabled covered by Medicaid than they spent on elementary and secondary education.

Health roundup: The depression patch, McDonald's trans fat goofs and bottled water (satire) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

And if all Americans just had all the right chemicals pumped into their bodies (at several thousand dollars a month in prescription drug costs, by the way), we'd all be healthy and pain free! The side effects of this drug, of course, are only found in the small print. These include high blood pressure if you happen to eat anything containing tyramine, a dietary compound that is incompatible with most depression drugs. Those foods include cheese and smoked meats. Giving up cheese depresses a lot of people all by itself, thereby creating demand for even more depression drugs. Clever gimmick, eh?

Be a fiscal patriot: die early and save your government from bankruptcy Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

The only discussions on the table are about shifting money from one party to another, lowering prescription drug costs, passing the buck, shuffling around paperwork, and basically just changing who's accountable for the bankruptcy, rather than actually trying to make people healthy. We need to start investing in prevention, but of course, as I've pointed out many times, if we actually had a healthy population, the government wouldn't be able to afford it. Taxes would have to go up considerably if the average lifespan increased by only five years.

Best Choices From the People's Pharmacy Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D. See book keywords and concepts

That's when you will pay 100 percent of your prescription drug costs until you have kicked in an additional $2,850. Once your total yearly drug costs reach $5,100, the government steps in again and pays 95 percent of your bills. Then it starts all over again the following year. The problem is that the donut hole is huge. Millions of Americans will discover that between their premiums and their monthly drug bills, they won't be able to make ends meet.

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers Katharine Greider See book keywords and concepts

Get Melva on the subject of prescription drug costs, and before long she's liable to mention her son: She worries about him. A self-employed realtor, Jim McCuddy, fifty, had a severe heart attack two years ago and endures a host of related chronic conditions, including worsening asthma and depression, that have him on a dozen prescription medications; some are pricey new bestsellers. Jim recently discovered his insurance premiums were going up to almost $700 a month; he just doesn't have the money, so he has dropped his prescription coverage.

Disease Prevention and Treatment The Life Extension Editorial Staff See book keywords and concepts

These studies also indicate that Biostim would dramatically reduce the need for antibiotic therapy, thereby saving untold millions of dollars in prescription drug costs. A double-blind trial was conducted to evaluate the capacity of Biostim to diminish the frequency of infectious episodes in chronic bronchitis. The study duration was 9 months. Of the 73 subjects selected, 38 received Biostim, and 35 received a placebo. By the 9th month, the duration in days of infectious episodes was 60% lower in the Biostim group compared with the placebo group.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Well, the first part certainly is. prescription drug costs are indeed high—and rising fast. Americans now spend a staggering $200 billion a year on prescription drugs, and that figure is growing at about 12 percent a year (down from a high of 18 percent in 1999).1 Drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill—which itself is rising at an alarming rate.

Since prescription drug costs are rising so fast, payers are particularly eager to get out from under them by shifting costs to individuals. The result is that more people have to pay a greater fraction of their drug bills out of pocket. And that packs a wallop. Many of them simply can't do it. They trade off drugs against home heating or food. Some people try to string out their drugs by taking them less often than prescribed, or sharing them with a spouse.

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers Katharine Greider See book keywords and concepts

They basically said, 'If you guys push for any changes, we'll kill it altogether,'" an outcome dreaded by child-health advocates who had worked so long to encourage more research. As PhRMA spokesperson Jeff Trewhitt told the AARP Bulletin, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." [chapter 3] YOU SAY PROFITS, THEY SAY R&D "America's Pharmaceutical Companies: New Medicines. New Hope." This is the tag line for the recent full-page ads appearing in national magazines as part of PhRMA's campaign to gussy up its increasingly negative image.

Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternatives Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

In an ironic twist in the last year, the skyrocketing prescription drug costs of HMOs have made national headlines.79 For most HMOs, drugs now exceed their total costs for all types of medical and surgical hospitalizations. The drugs costing them the most money are the serotonin boosters, because these drugs have been so thoughtlessly pushed on patients. Now that this policy has backfired financially, HMOs and managed care insurers are trying to get doctors to prescribe the older, tricyclic antidepressants, which are as effective as the Prozac group.

FAIR USE NOTICE: The research quoted here is provided under the protection of Fair Use provisions and published by the 501(c)3 non-profit Consumer Wellness Center for the purposes of public comment and education. Authors / publishers may submit books for consideration of inclusion here.

TERMS OF USE: Read full terms of use. Citations of text from NaturalPedia must include: 1) Full credit to the original author and book title. 2) Secondary credit to the Natural News Naturalpedia as a research resource and a link to www.NaturalNews.com/np/index.html

This unique compilation of research is copyright (c) 2008 by the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center.

ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.