Posted by Michael Wonder on 19 Mar 2019
Fewer people are strategising with prescription drug choices to control their health care costs
19 March 2019 - The U.S. has the highest drug prices in the world. Despite enormous expenses in research and marketing, pharmaceutical companies have the tenth highest profit levels among all industries.
Despite some attention from Congress and the administration, prices remain high and promise to continue do so, at least in the immediate future. You might expect that people look for ways, whether good or bad, to lower their drug expenses. But the number doing so has fallen since 2013, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 60% of adults from 18 to 64 years have been prescribed medication over the last 12 months. Seventy percent of prescription drug medications carry out-of-pocket costs. To reduce those expenses, adults can ask a doctor for lower-cost-medication, fail to take medicine as proscribed, or use an alternative therapy. The use of all three strategies has dropped since 2013.
