Patients Walk Away From Expensive Drugs, Get Sicker

A study by medical industry research firm Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions reported on in The Wall Street Journal, says that people who order prescription drugs often do not pick them up at pharmacies because they find then to be too expensive. It is a wonder that the people who need these drugs do not check what they will cost ahead of time, but many people do not read their cellphone subscription plans and later complain of high bills.

The paper reports that “nearly one in 10 new prescriptions for brand-name drugs were abandoned by people with commercial health plans in the quarter, up 88% from four years earlier, when the data were first tracked and before the recession began.”

Leaving aside the fact that people even those with health insurance do not believe that they can afford drugs that they need, it would seem to be a basic premise of health care reform that health care should be more affordable. That is not the case, and big pharma companies still appear to make large profits, perhaps too large, on their products. Whatever programs the Administration and Congress have put into place have not frightened drug companies enough for them to change old habits.

The free market view of drug prices is that phama companies should charge what they believe is the most profitable price for any treatment. What they lose in customers who cannot pay for their products, they make up in high prices. The government has already decided that the nation cannot afford those practices.  Pharma companies may believe that the government cannot track every transaction.

When drug prices are inelastic, some people who need them are bound to walk away and become sicker than if they took their medications. These people put a burden on the health care system because they are often treated in hospitals for conditions that could have been managed more cheaply by doctors in their offices or at local clinics.

So, the government has a plan in place that has not worked yet, and the pharma companies do not appear to be worried about conditions that may eventually bring their profits down. Make money now — they must reason–no matter who gets sick.

Douglas A. McIntyre