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Essay On Medical Issues In Health Care

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While it is clearly evident that the United States has much higher prescription prices than Canada and England, it will not be easy to solve these issues. Congressional gridlock, polarization, and the power of pharmaceutical lobbyists makes negotiating or changing Part D, the part of Medicare concerned with prescription drug costs, very difficult. However the best chance at creating change might be advocating the severity of the issue to those on the frontline of healthcare: physicians. Due to the fact that they are integral to the healthcare system, physicians often have a big say in health care reform. If physicians push for lower drug costs, which is in their self interest since it would lead to people following prescription orders more …show more content…

2015).
The Affordable Care Act attempted to lower the financial burden of prescription drugs for patients. The Act provided a $250 yearly rebate to those people in the coverage gap to help pay for their medication, in addition to a 50% discount on brand-name prescription drugs for seniors within the coverage gap (Protection 2010). However, given the current government’s plans to eliminate the Act, this annual rebate seems to be a solution of the past. A viable change that can be made is revising Medicare Part D, the part concerned with prescription drug coverage, so that the Department of Health and Human Services is able to negotiate drug prices. In addition, the practice of “pay-for-delay”, in which large pharmaceutical companies pay off companies threatening to release generic versions of the drug, needs to be eliminated. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is currently trying to pass a bill (S.3056 - CREATES Act of 2016) that would eliminate the “pay-for-delay” practice (Leahy 2016).
Another solution is allowing people from the United States to buy medications from cheaper countries. Many individuals already take this route of prescription buying it is currently not easily accessible. Such a route to buying prescription drugs would result in consumers saving as much as fifty-five percent of the list price in

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