Posted:
April 7, 2008
People with health insurance are having more trouble paying for prescription drugs as higher out-of-pocket costs for medications and a slowing economy strain family budgets, according to surveys and health care analysts.
The Virginia-based National Patient Advocate Foundation, which helps people pay medical bills, found that 31% of the 44,729 people it aided last year cited drug co-payments as their top medical-debt problem. In some cases, the patient's share of drug costs ranges as high as 70% of the total.
Thirteen percent of insured Americans report that paying for drugs is a serious problem, says a recent poll by USA Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health. That's up from 9% in a foundation survey in 2000.
The 31% reporting drug payments as their top medical-debt problem to the patient foundation rose from 26% of people in 2006 and 17% in 2005. Patient payments for generic drugs rose 38% from 2000 to 2007, and some brand-name drugs rose 48%, the Kaiser data show. Inflation rose 21% during those years.
Prescription drugs account for about 10% of all health care spending in the U.S.
Story reported by the Alliance for Retired Americans