The cost of treating patients over the years has shot right up to a level that makes most people blanche when they get their head around the figures.
This upward trend doesn't show any signs of stopping either.
Many people think it is the cost of treatment that is the problem.
It is in part, but the larger part of this financial fiasco lays smack dab in the hands of the drug manufacturers.
You only need to know that if you take a look at your Part D drug coverage prices you are paying way more than you need to.
Why are you paying more than you need to? You are forking out more cash for drugs because you are likely asking for and buying brand name drugs.
There isn't any reason for this when generic drugs will do the same job.
What's going on is that drug companies have smartened up over the years and have started promoting their new drugs directly to the consumer.
When a new drug hits the market and people are hit with a barrage of advertising about such and such a drug being a "miracle wonder better than ever and what went before this" kind of drug what happens? What happens in that they head straight to their family doctor and say, "I want to try such and such a drug for my condition.
" Off they go to the drugstore and get brand name X drug that is supposedly new and improved.
Well this is where the rubber meets the road, because in more and more cases the so-called new and improved drug is actually the same drug as the old one just reformulated into an extended release form or into a blend with another drug.
The reason drug manufacturers do this is to sustain their profit levels.
They are doing it on the backs of the patients who rely on them to produce drugs that help save lives.
If a drug company doesn't have another drug in the pipeline to develop and promote, their bottom line will suffer.
Hence the little tricks by making an old formula into something newer.
It brings in more money for them, but takes advantage of consumers.
Drug companies are also notorious for interfering in the process for other manufacturers to make and sell generic versions of the drugs that make them buckets of money.
All this spells "EXPENSIVE.
" Add into this situation that it is very difficult to get lower cost drugs from Canada and you have a recipe for a health care system driven by profit hungry drug companies.
If you want to save money on your health care costs, demand generic drugs.