Rising Prescription Drug Prices: A Major Issue and Call for Action - Essay Sample

Introduction

Over the years, as technology in medicine has been edging forward, the price of prescription drugs has grown concurrently. There are more drugs in the market with improved , and better safety profiles but the drugs become more and more expensive as their availability increases. The price of pharmaceutical products has become such a prominent problem that efforts have been put in place by the Senate of the United States of America, to rectify the course. The magnitude of the problem is evident in the political arena, where politicians can barely speak about healthcare without commenting on the price of the medication. The current situation may have resulted from the interplay of several factors that had a compounded effect of increased drug prices.

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One of the most significant contributors to the high prices of drugs is the high input that goes into the development of pharmaceutical products. The process of coming up with a new medication is a long and expensive process (Food and Drug Administration 2018). It requires a significant investment in terms of an individual's mental energy, time and money. A summary of the process is as follows: an individual gets an idea of a new drug which may be useful in the pharmaceutical industry then they begin their first research in a lab; isolating their target molecule and outlining its properties. After the initial investigation, an extensive preclinical study has to be done on the drug to determine the basic safety profile of the chemical and its efficacy. Clinical research to elucidate the safety profile of the product in human beings is the next step of the process. The Food and Drug Administration collects all the data that is gathered on the drug from the previous stages and reviews it to give recommendations on whether the drug should be approved or not. If the drug is approved, the Food and Drug Administration will still follow it up for post-marketing surveillance done using the yellow card plan. This whole process as outlined above may take an average of 25 to 30 years. The rigorous high input in the process of coming up with new a drug is thus a factor that contributes to the current state of expensive prescription drugs. It has impacted both new medicines in the market and old medication. Since it is the same companies coming p with the new drugs, they scale the prices of older drugs up to fund the development of new medicines. After a company makes new drugs, the drugs have to sell at high prices to achieve a profit on the total investment made.

The issue of highly priced medication has become a problem on many fronts in today's society. First is the political front. The matter of pharmaceutical products has been a point of political concern for a very long period (Wall 2016). Time has to be set aside to put policies in place which will mitigate the problem. The political involvement became evident at a time when the US Senate was involved in deliberations with one of the top officers of a high ranking pharmaceutical company. The goal of that house assemble was to find out from the pharmaceutical industry the real cause of the very high drug prices. The effort was however void since the official invoked his Fifth Amendment right and did not divulge anything. A lot of time and money is getting channeled into finding solutions that are not forthcoming.

Steep prices on drugs ensure that they are only affordable to a few members of society, while many more find it difficult to sustain themselves where health is concerned. According to research that conducted on the matter, unaffordability of drugs causes a great deal of distress to the individual directly involved as well as their family members. Not all of their family members will be affected equally, but they will all share some of the pain (Chih and Liang 2017). The distress that results from the inability to afford healthcare was shown to lead to moderate and severe mental health disorder.

Economically, there are countless examples of individuals who have become poor and in debt. A study done in 2018 showed that 55 million people in the United States of America had become poor because they had to finance their healthcare (Nagarajan 2018). The majority of the country's population includes individuals who are not able to have health insurance covers, and so when a time comes when they have a health need, they have to pay all their bills. Within a short period, they end up in the bracket of citizens who are below the poverty line. These statistics do not even include those who were already below the poverty line and can barely afford healthcare. Therefore the number of people affected is very high. Besides the distress of being ill, living in poverty also contributes to psychological stress, and it increases the risk of mental health compromise. From this discussion, it is therefore clear that the current prices of health care related products have a dual effect in predisposing citizens to mental health disease.

For us to find solutions to this problem, there has to be a coordinated response by several key partners who play different but equally important roles. All the facets of a community which are affected by the problem will need to create a harmonious solution to realise any fruits. One of the primary people who can create an impact on the situation is the pharmacist.

At an individual level, the pharmacists can help to reduce the cost that a patient will have to bear by ensuring correct prescription at the earliest time. Error during prescription is one of the factors that contribute to the increased cost of healthcare (Dalton and Byrne 2017). Since each drug is costly, when a patient receives a wrong prescription, they are forced to buy pills that they do not need. Eventually, they will have to buy the right medication for their illness to abate, but they will have undergone a high extra cost in purchasing unnecessary drugs, and that is an avoidable expense. Therefore the pharmacists can ensure that they are keen with each patient so that none has to incur the liability of buying the wrong medication. Over-prescription has also been shown to be a source of the increased cost of healthcare. When a patient has to buy more drugs than they need, they spend much more money that in reality, they did not have to pay.

On the societal level, studies have shown that the quality of healthcare that patients receive has an impact on the humanistic outcomes of healthcare (Dalton and Byrne 2017). That means that when the pharmacists give their healthcare services in a way that maintains the patient's self-respect and dignity, the patients will have reduced chances of having psychological distress. It provides the patient with an opportunity to deal with the problematic situation of costly healthcare in a well-adapted way, and they retain sound mental health. Through this, the pharmacists can deal with the problem at the level of the society. The contribution of pharmacists will not be a wholesome solution, but it will be in a positive direction

References

Chih, H. J., & Liang, W. (2017). Effect of Unaffordable Medical Need on Distress Level of Family Member: Analyses of 1997-2013 United States National Health Interview Surveys. BMC Psychiatry, 17(1). doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1483-z

Dalton, K., & Byrne, S. (2017). Role of the Pharmacist in Reducing Healthcare Costs: Current Insights. Integrated Pharmacy Research and Practice, Volume 6, 37-46. doi:10.2147/iprp.s108047

Food and Drug Administration. (2018, January 4). The Drug Development Process. Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/forpatients/approvals/drugs/

Nagarajan, R. (2018, June 13). Health Spending Pushed 55 Million Into Poverty in a year: Study. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/health-spending-pushed-55-million-into-poverty-in-a-year-study/articleshow/64568199.cms

Psychological Effects of Poverty. (2018, January 8). Retrieved from https://borgenproject.org/psychological-effects-poverty/

Wall, T. (2016, March 11). Politics and Prescription Drug Prices. Retrieved from https://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2016/03/11/politics_and_prescription_drug_prices_1580.html