A license to drug
How would you like an annual payment plan to make sure you get your yearly supply of prescriptions? You could pay one lump fee, or break it up into monthly payments.
So goes a proposal by a group of researchers who think selling you a drug "license" is a great way to keep you coming back for more. According to their proposal, patients would pay an annual license fee for their prescriptions. The researchers liken this plan to those of cell phone companies, or to purchasing computer software, or even all-you-can-eat buffets!
When did medical treatment become such a blatant commodity? We're supposed to model health care after all-you-can-eat buffets? Surely, they're joking.
Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case. The proposal outlines a plan that doesn't add to patients' expenses or health insurance costs, nor— surprisingly—does it add to drug company profits.
The concern is that there's a certain level of non-compliance in taking prescriptions, whether it be for monetary reasons or just a general desire to not continue with the drug any longer. The researchers looked at how higher co-pays are affecting patients' habits in keeping up with their prescriptions. Looking at statins in particular, they estimated that use would move from 7.8 months to 9.8 months under this licensing program.
I think this is a winning proposal mostly for the drug companies. While the researchers assert that it won't increase their profits, their own estimate says just the opposite. This way, they're hooking "customers" on an annual basis. (I hope you realize that somewhere along the way you stopped being a patient.)
A plan like this is saying that you'll continue on your medications indefinitely, ignoring the possibility that your health condition may actually be cured and you'd no longer require a medication.
Which just goes to show that the drug companies know that these drugs aren't being used to cure you, they just work to manage you as "sick." This proposal gives a green light to the medical establishment to throw in the towel on actually trying to heal you.
Also, doctors in this country prescribe entirely too many drugs—so much more than other democracies in Europe, North America and Asia. But our national overall health outcomes do not compare favorably to these other countries. There's too much emphasis placed on "drug study" medicine, and it's costing our country the proverbial arm and a leg, as it were. The data does not support this drug overuse, which is being hotly criticized by many physicians, especially from academia. This is a raging argument that just isn't making it into the mainstream media.
This particular proposal may be well intended—people who truly need a medication obviously need to take it. But it risks playing into the hands of an inadequate, unbalanced, costly—and in many cases—dangerous way of supplying healthcare. Not to mention, playing into the hands of Big Pharma.
