What Do We Prescribe for the Future?

*The following is an excerpt from an article “The Medicating of America,” by Bryan Silver, published in Living Safer Magazine and The Legal Examiner.

What Do We Prescribe for the Future?

Unfortunately, some of the topics touched on here are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Big Pharma and its relation to healthcare in the U.S. No one questions that prescription drugs are more expensive here than anywhere in the world, but everyone should be asking the question why is this the case? We can point to pricing structures, odd bedfellows in the way of PBMs and pharmacies, the time and cost involved in testing drugs for FDA approval—all problems, but many believe that they’re superseded by one single factor: greed. Rarely is pharmaceutical development looked at as rectifying humanity’s ills, more often than not it’s simply seen as a way to raise one’s revenue stream. Eerily telling of this trend is the way we’ve attached “industry” to the idea of healthcare in the modern vernacular. Is pursuit of profit not the essence of industrialization?

Statistics project that prescription drug prices will jump 11.6 percent in 2017; a hefty hop in comparison with life’s other necessities—food prices are projected to rise 2.8 percent and clothing 5.7 percent this year. The worst part is that most people have little choice. Many medications are necessities, and the current systems don’t allow for consumers to create value by shopping around the way they might with other commodities. Adding to this is the fact that all of the above or rising faster than the American wage, making for an untenable situation in many people’s future. How is this happening? Why is this happening and when is it going to change? As a nation, and as a society, we need to start collectively asking these questions—and we need to demand answers from the companies that are perpetuating the situation.

 

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