Essay Sample on Drug Price Control

Introduction

Drug prices have continued to rise over the years in the USA. This problem has made it difficult for the poor and the elderly to access prescription drugs that are important in preventing pain, disability and death. Federal legislation has tried to address this problem by the creation of Medicare prescription drug, improvement and modernization act of 2003. This law led to the creation of Medicare part D prescription drug program which was designed to assist the elderly and the disabled Americans to access prescription drugs. Even with these legislations, the price of drugs has continued to rise tremendously making it difficult for Americans to access them. New drugs are retailed at a very high price. Further, the price offered for the same drugs in different drugstores are completely unpredictable.it is therefore important to find an innovative way to control drug prices to ensure Americans continue to enjoy good health due to accessibility and affordability of medications

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Drug prices need to be addressed as quickly as possible to ensure that people get to afford the drugs when they need to treat illnesses. This problem can be solved on a local level by pushing for standard prices for medications. It is not surprising to find a drug in a certain store having completely unimaginable price compared to another in another location within the same town. Pharmacies do not sell medicines at the same price. Many people assume that pharmacies sell drugs at relatively the same price. Drug price comparisons can help consumers discover the effects of being charged different prices by different pharmacies in spite of being located in the same town.

I believe that drugstores are partly responsible for the high prices of drugs. An audit needs to be done on all drug stores that exist in a town to determine the differences in pricing for a certain drug to evaluate the variations that exist. This step would allow the stakeholders determine how patients pay varying prices for drugs when they purchase them from the drugstores.

Drugstores just like other businesses are in it for profit and it seems that there are some of them who decide to escalate the price of drugs so that they can make huge profits from it. This should not happen since it does not only increase out-of-pocket costs but also affects access to these medications. It is the role of legislators to create a policy that helps to address this problem. Standardizing the price of drugs across different drugstores would allow patients in different locations to access drugs at the same price which would reduce cost of drugs.

The first step to gathering evidence that drugstores charge different prices for the same drug in the same location is to find people who bought a specific drug from different drugstores to compare them. The evidence that would be obtained would be enough to be presented to local authorities. The intention of presenting the evidence is to convince the legislator that a change is required.

Conclusion

Price standardization of prescription drugs can be achieved with the available resources. What is needed is to convince the public and other stakeholders that change is necessary and possible.