Expensive Prescription Drugs

The costs of prescription specialty drugs, drugs that require special storage, handling, administration, or monitoring and are used to treat cancer and other rare conditions, including HIV and hemophilia, have been rising. Compared to healthy people, cancer patients are 2.5 times more likely to declare bankruptcy. Furthermore, going bankrupt increases patients’ risk of dying by 80 percent. This “financial toxicity” of cancer results from the high costs of cancer treatment and the side effects of being treated, such as not being able to work for extended periods of time. Costs of cancer drugs have been steadily increasing – about 18% after adjusting for inflation between 1996 and 2012, and some treatments even cost over $100,000 per year. This is due to the R&D costs, wayward practices of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), health insurance companies, and "financially tainted medicine." As a result, pharmaceutical companies are making huge profit margins at the expense of patients.

Sources:
www.aarp.org/money/credit-loans-debt/info-2018/the-high-cost-of-cancer-treatment.html
www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/060115/how-much-drug-companys-spending-allocated-research-and-development-average.asp
www.statnews.com/2018/08/27/pharmacy-benefit-managers-good-or-bad/
www.cancer.org/latest-news/study-shows-us-cancer-drug-costs-increasing-despite-competition.html