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The Price of Drugs: Longer and Better Lives … But at What Cost?

Updated: Oct 7

The pharmaceutical industry and drug crisis are very prevalent in our news today. This paper delves into the complexities of branded prescription drug pricing in the United States, challenging the common notion that branded pharmaceutical companies are solely to blame for high drug prices. By exploring the details of drug pricing, the role of pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs), and the capitalistic framework of the American healthcare system, this paper highlights the ethical dilemmas in the United States' prescription drug delivery system. 


The discussion addresses various ethical theories- consequentialism, utilitarianism, and deontology—that influence how we should view drug pricing and patient access to branded prescription medicines. It argues that a hybrid approach, wherein the government provides for a baseline of generic drugs while the healthcare market handles other medications, could provide a balance between patient needs and the importance of sustaining the cycle of innovation. In arguing for a more effective and ethical framework for U.S. branded prescription drug distribution, it considers various stakeholders involved, including patients, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and their employees, insurance companies, and the broader society.  


Table of Contents

  • Abstract

  • Introduction

  • Background Information

  • Stakeholders

  • Utilitarianism, Dignity, and Equality  

  • Consequentialism, Deontology, Responsibility, and Individualism

  • Value of Drugs in Society

  • Conclusion


Introduction

“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” Sir William Osler believed that American healthcare should focus on the patient and not simply on the disease (National Institutes of Health). This statement is much aligned with what I will discuss about the availability and function of prescription drugs in the United States. 


Calls that branded prescription drugs are “too expensive” and that pharmaceutical manufacturers are to blame for high prices, are nearly universal and a populist statement trumpeted by both sides of the political spectrum. But the seemingly simple idea that pharmaceutical companies should charge less for medicines they have developed is much more complicated when the complexities of drug pricing are more fully examined. Indeed, there could be serious consequences if major drug pricing reforms and guaranteed access for all to all medicines were enacted. Viewing drugs and drug pricing as one piece of the overall healthcare system and one that operates within a capitalistic framework, is helpful to understanding this broad and complex topic further. The reason for the controversies around drug pricing relate to how certain drugs are viewed, for example, as a product, a service, a fundamental right, or a luxury. Should we approach the availability of prescription drugs from a consequentialist perspective (an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are), a utilitarian perspective (an ethical theory that promotes the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people), or a deontological perspective (a theory that places special emphasis on the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions)? 


Circling back to the quote by Sir William Osler, my proposal takes into account people from all sectors of society as I believe the most effective plan for the distribution of prescription drugs is a system that establishes a baseline that is government supported, and any other drug that fall above the baseline would be available for purchase in the healthcare marketplace. This provides a hybrid approach compared to what we have in place now, and serves to promote healthcare benefits to a population at large without risking it at the expense of other factors. Throughout the course of this paper, I am going to dive more deeply into necessary background information and an ethical analysis that helped me develop this idea. 


Background Information

It is important to define what is meant by the “pharmaceutical industry” and “pharmaceutical companies.” Simply defining pharmaceutical companies as any company that manufactures drugs is a very broad definition of the term. It would be like defining Apple and the local electronics shop that fixes computers as “computer companies.” There are both branded pharmaceutical companies, who work to create new branded drugs and generic pharmaceutical companies, who work to create generic versions of drugs already on the market. Some companies in the pharmaceutical industry engage in research and development, but do not sell medications. Other companies in the pharmaceutical industry may sell medications developed by branded or generic companies but do not engage in research and development. The pharmaceutical industry is larger and more diverse than many people might think. The complaints and concerns about the cost of drugs, typically refer to what a branded pharmaceutical company charges for a branded drug, which is often new or newer medicine. After a limited period of time determined by the patent life of the drug, generic companies are able to make a therapeutically equivalent version of the new medicine. This framework was established by Congress in 1984 and is known as the Hatch-Waxman Act. Since Hatch Waxman, over 90% of prescriptions have been filled with generic medicines. The Hatch-Waxman regulatory regime incentivizes branded pharmaceutical companies to then look to find new and/or more innovative versions of existing drugs to bring something new and better to the market (PhRMA). This creates a cycle of innovation that is meant to spur innovation and lead to better and more alternatives for patients. Because of the cycle of innovation, many once life-ending diseases have been cured or nearly cured, such as hepatitis C, multiple myeloma, and HIV. 


The pharmaceutical industry is worth over 1.6 trillion dollars and employs hundreds of thousands of people in the United States (Statista). Even so, Americans have very polarized views of the pharmaceutical industry. According to the results of a Gallup poll, 58% of the United States views the pharmaceutical industry negatively, 27% views it positively, and 15% is indifferent (Gallup). Negative attitudes about “Big Pharma” and the corruption that lies in profit producing drug companies are common throughout the United States. 

When thinking about the nation's healthcare spending, prescription drugs take up just a small sliver in the overall healthcare spending. For every 1 dollar spent on health care only 14 cents is spent on prescription drugs (BioNJ). The overall cost of healthcare in the United States would not change dramatically if politicians were able to magically remove all prescription drug cost increases, because according to Pharma and Profits, the other components that make up healthcare spending are continually rising (Pharma and Profits).

Additionally, investing in pharmaceutical research and development is expensive and risky. Companies spend millions of dollars on clinical trials to develop new compounds, and most of those clinical trials fail. In fact, fewer than 10% of therapies that enter clinical trials actually succeed and make it to the market. This means that nearly 90% of the drugs pharmaceutical companies invest in, fail (National Library of Medicine). It also takes on average at least 13 years and $2.6 billion dollars to research, develop and bring a new drug to market (Policy and Medicine). Consider for a moment that a pharmaceutical company could spend $2 billion dollars trying to develop a drug and it could fail and never reach the marketplace, and that a company has to be able to withstand a financial loss of that size- potentially over and over again- and still stay in business and pay its suppliers, employees, taxes, etc. Thus, patents act as a reward for the successful products that the pharmaceutical company is able to turn out (Pharma and Profits).


Briefly before, I mentioned the concept of branded versus generic name companies drugs and their alignment with patent protection. To explain more, the US issues patents in order to let inventors, including pharmaceutical companies, profit from their inventions for a period of time without any competition. Patent law and protection is very complex, but in general, in the US it allows for a period of about 10-15 years without any competition. Essentially the drug company has full economic rights to its drug until other companies are allowed to use the drug the prescription drug company discovered and to benefit from its clinical trials and investment to create a copy of the brand name medicine. Prices might be initially and for a period of time higher on branded drugs but once the patent expires society often benefits from cheaper effective generic versions of the branded drugs. For example, the average price of a prescription drug in the year following generic entry and the loss of exclusivity fell approximately 66% from 2002 to 2014 (IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics). 


Another key contributor to the pharmaceutical industry are pharmaceutical benefit managers or PBMs. Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers are companies that manage prescription drug benefits for health insurers. Pharmaceutical companies set their prices and PBMs work to negotiate with companies on behalf of the PBMs’ clients or insurers. The prices that PBMs negotiate for their clients influence the out of pocket costs that patients pay. PBMs were designed to help reduce the cost of drugs for their clients, who are typically insurance companies with large employers. One of the ways that PBMs return money to their clients is through negotiating rebates. A rebate is a portion of the purchase price of the product that the seller (pharmaceutical company) pays to the buyer (the insurance company or large employer). The PBM and the buyer (the PBM’s client) share the rebate. Rebates on certain drugs can be as high as 50% of the total cost of the drug (BioNJ). The three main PBMs are Caremark (CVS Health), Express Scripts (Cigna), and OptumRx (UnitedHealth Group). On average about 42% of the cost of prescription medicines goes to PBMs. Another 10% goes to wholesalers and then on average pharmaceutical companies usually receive less than 50% of the cost of prescription medicines. (BioNJ). When the news reports the cost of a certain therapy, that cost can be thought of as a “sticker price” akin to buying a car. Given the complexities of the system, it is rare that a patient ever pays the “sticker price.” However, this does not mean that patients may not still be paying high out of pocket costs, but simply looking at the “sticker price” of a medicine as the media often does, is not truly an accurate measure.   


The pharmaceutical industry in the United States is driven by a capitalistic system and supported by our understanding of legal rights. In simple terms, a capitalistic society has or includes a certain type of economic system in which private sectors own and control their own property in alignment with their own interests and can demand and set prices in the way that best produces profit for them. This is aligned with the American notion that property rights belong to the person and that corporations are viewed as persons in the eyes of the law. The capitalist system incentivizes more innovation as pharmaceutical companies are essentially in competition with one another to produce new drugs and make more profit. Pharma and Profits summarized how, “The United States believes that investments in research were important for the public good- for our defense, for our health, and for our economic prosperity” (Pharma and Profits). This is proven by the annual average of how 50% of new drugs are developed in the United States (BioNJ).


Stakeholders

Throughout the course of the paper thus far, I have briefly mentioned sectors of society that are at stake in this discussion. Now, I will be diving more into the specifics of who or what should be taken into consideration in answering the question on if Americans should have the right to unrestricted access to all their needed prescription drugs.


There are multiple critical people and groups of people who should be taken into account when determining the cost of a drug. Medical care is not one sided and the people who are working in researching, developing, manufacturing, marketing, etc. are valuable as well. 

Patients are the first stakeholder we consider, and arguably the central one. Patients are people who seek medical attention and care. It is important to take into consideration the background of patients and their needs in order for them to have the highest quality of life. In regards to prices of drugs, (Pharma and Profits) said that, “the price should be based on the value the drugs bring to the patient and the healthcare system.” While it is easy to say price should be determined by value of life, the bigger dilemma is how one classifies “quality of life”. Does life have a price tag? Or is a lifesaving treatment priceless? 


The next stakeholder we identified are doctors. By the Hippocratic oath it is the doctor’s responsibility to uphold ethical obligations to patients. Many patients will look to their doctors to receive medical advice. Oftentimes, the outcome of a patient’s treatment is based on what their doctor suggested to them. Yet, is it the doctor’s responsibility to prescribe an expensive medication, even if they know the patient may not be able to afford it?


The pharmaceutical industry is also a big stakeholder in this situation. Consider medical care from the perspective of pharmaceutical companies. We must ask: do we as humans have a fundamental duty to help those who are suffering as much as we can? For example, if you walk by a lake and see someone drowning, the natural human instinct is to stop and try to save their life. Following this logic, some might argue that if a pharmaceutical company has created a life-saving medicine, they have a duty to allow patients who need it to access it. After all, if a death is preventable, shouldn’t we prevent it? However, consider the more difficult question: do we have a responsibility to help others even if doing so comes at a cost to ourselves? For example, assuming there are no other options, would you swim out to save a drowning person, even if you were a weak swimmer and it could be dangerous?

Likewise, in the short term, it may seem like a very simple action for a pharmaceutical company to lower the price of a drug to save someone’s life. However, in the long term, this leads to a slippery slope. If pharmaceutical companies keep selling drugs at low prices, they could lose money or even go bankrupt. At that point, these companies will be unable or unwilling to keep creating new treatments for diseases, and society as a whole will suffer. Moreover, manufacturing companies employ many workers, and their salary and way of living revolves around the success of each drug. In New Jersey alone there are over 75,000 people employed by pharmaceutical companies (BioNJ).


The next stakeholder is insurance companies. Insurance companies work to financially protect patients by covering some of their medical costs. Questions such as what would be the cost of other medical interventions if a drug was not taken or what people are able to afford for a drug are questions insurance companies grapple with. Yet, insurance companies can only prioritize covering drugs to a certain extent. One must remember that insurance companies, like everyone, have a finite amount of resources. If these companies agree to pay millions of dollars to help out one person, millions of others will have to face a decrease in their insurance coverage. In other words, in order to give to one, we have to take the basics from millions of others. 


Lastly, when you think about it, all of us are stakeholders. All of us are or at some point in our lives will be patients who will need or want to be able to take medicines. We or our families are taxpayers whose taxes support federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health insurance coverage to millions of people over age 65 or who have lower incomes. 


Utilitarianism, Dignity, and Equality  

In order to fully understand the significance of prescription drugs in American society, one must evaluate the moral and ethical implications regarding access to care. Centered around the ethical portion of this paper is the question: Should all Americans have the right to any branded prescription they may need? One key element of this question is what is meant by “need”, a life saving medicine is something people might agree is “needed”, but what about a weight loss drug, or a drug that works slightly better and may provide 2 or 3 additional months of life as compared to a cheaper generic alternative? This complex question will be analyzed under 3 main ethical frameworks; utilitarianism, deontology, and consequentialism, alongside the values of dignity, equality, responsibility, and individuality. 

When evaluating the question, if Americans should have the right to branded prescriptions they may need, using the values of dignity and equality, healthcare should honor all individuals in society. Healthcare should account for the worth of all individuals. The United States Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) already outlined how healthcare should be considered a human right by referencing the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights saying that:


“the declaration is addressed not only to states but also to individuals, groups, communities, institutions, and corporations, public and private…promotion of health and social development for their people is a central purpose of government, which all sectors of society share…solidarity among human beings and international cooperation towards that end are to be encouraged. Duty to meet the right to health falls on all sectors of society not just agencies and internationally as well not just domestically.” (Access to Medicines as a Human Right).


It is undemanding to simply state that health should be a human right, however determining how health should be a standard in our society is far more controversial.


Taking into account dignity and equality, accessibility to prescription drugs should honor every person in society no matter their socioeconomic status, race, gender, age, etc. The simplest definition of dignity is that all people hold a special value that is tied to their humanity. One would assume from this definition that access to prescription drugs should be maximized for all humans. The idea of “maximization” is most closely associated with the theory of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism describes how the most ethical decision would be the one that provides the greatest good or benefit to one’s overall quality of life to the greatest number of people. Using this theory alongside the values of dignity and equality, the approach is very simple: America should provide branded prescription drugs to anyone who needs them and that would prioritize an increase in quality of life to a larger population.


Rooted in the American fundamental rights in the Declaration of Independence is the phrase, “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”. Commonly this is used to describe the protection the government has created for all of its citizens. However, in terms of health, one may argue that not granting everyone access to prescription drugs is not protecting their, “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”.


However, there is a distinct difference between asserting that all people deserve needed healthcare and that all people should have access to a specific group, list, or set of drugs. Currently, the capitalist system set in place in the United States does not historically negotiate drug prices with manufacturers. In our system today, Part D plan providers can negotiate drug prices. Additionally, under the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government will begin negotiating prices for certain drugs. While some Americans are supported under the federal government programs of Medicare and Medicaid, many Americans are not covered by them. These people instead have employer-supplied healthcare, state coverage, or no insurance coverage.  

 

A recent example of restricted access to prescription drugs is in North Carolina, which recently dropped insurance coverage for the popular weight loss and diabetes medications, Wegovy(R) and Ozempic(R). This means that a patient already in treatment or who wants to start treatment must find another way to pay for the medication. They either have to decide to stop treatment, not go onto the drugs, or pay out of pocket, which can be very expensive. It is also advised to not stop treatment once a patient is already in the cycle.

Whether all Americans deserve their needed healthcare can be perceived as different from whether or not all Americans deserve access to these specific prescription drugs or other itemized drugs. So it is fair to question this controversial decision. A noteworthy point is made by a spokesperson from Novo Nordisk , “We urge Treasurer Dale R. Folwell and the North Carolina State Health Plan to reconsider this decision and put patients first.” (Fortune). This emphasis on the patient's protection is much aligned with what Sir William Osler believed was most important in healthcare, the priorities of the patient. Patients should have the right to Wegovy and Ozempic, yet the state of North Carolina is refusing to underwrite this benefit. 


A utilitarian approach to drug distribution would be similar to a single payer system such as Canada and the United Kingdom have. Meaning that the government controls the marketplace and sets prices of drugs. This also affects what drugs are covered by the government. This can result in rationing of medicine and difficulty accessing prescription drugs (ATS Journals).


One case where the single payer system heavily is influencing the access one has to prescription drugs is Charlotte Perkins who has a 17 month old daughter. Perkins lives in the United Kingdom with her daughter, who is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that affects a protein in the body and can be fatal. In Perkins' case, her daughter has a severe case of cystic fibrosis and fears death if treatment is not available for her. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is evaluating the cost effectiveness of the cystic fibrosis medicines because they are fearful the taxpayers will not continue to get value from these drugs. After a few years off the drug, one's lungs, such as Perkins, may give out resulting in deterioration and death. Because of the universal healthcare system in place, this family fears losing their daughter due to NICE possibly deciding to revoke their approval of cystic fibrosis drugs (BBC News). This exemplifies a problem with a utilitarian healthcare system which is how promoting the greatest good for the greatest number can adversely impact the members of minorities whose needs are not prioritized. Recirculating back to Sir William Osler, this case would not follow suit with putting the patient's needs first, rather the taxpayers are prioritized. 


Under the values of dignity and equality and using the theory of utilitarianism, the main focus of this last section centered around maximizing healthcare benefits through prescription drugs to a population at large. With this being said, it is important to note how this can result in society not being able to provide/have available certain specialty medications that do not center around the focus of a large number of people. 


Consequentialism, Deontology, Responsibility, and Individualism

Going back to the ethical question I propose earlier in the paper, if Americans should have the right to unrestricted access to all their needed prescription drugs, it is important to take into consideration other perspectives. Using two more values, responsibility and individualism, access to prescription drugs should consider specific individuals in need of medical attention that suffer from rare, extreme, or life threatening conditions rather than prioritizing a general population at large. It should be America’s responsibility to protect those who are suffering the most and need the greatest amount of assistance. If given “easy access” to prescription drugs, medical care directed towards those who need more specialized attention could be compromised at the expense of others.


This section centers more closely on the theory of deontology. In healthcare, deontology describes how the correct course of action is dependent on what the duties and obligations are. This means that a physician may take an action for an individual that is beneficial to them but necessarily not beneficial to the whole society. Under deontology, physicians should cater and care for the needs of individual patients. With focusing on the individual needs of patients as it pertains to access to prescription drugs, there may or may not be specialized attention to each individual and people might be treated in different ways, depending on what they need. In essence, a deontological approach would allow individuals to receive various degrees of prescription drugs and not limit access. Another ethical principle that ties closely into this section is consequentialism. Under the lens of consequentialism which judges the morality of an action based upon the consequences of the outcome; when examining how America should distribute prescription drugs, there could be many unintended harms.


Some of those harms could affect the pharmaceutical industry. It is important to still consider the individuals who benefit from pharmaceutical companies succeeding; such as the millions of employees who are employed by pharmaceutical companies and their families and the patients receiving these drugs and their families. In addition, patients and their families and society at large would be harmed if pharmaceutical companies' profits are restricted, since companies reinvest profits in research and development of new medicines. Investments are good for the public good, which includes defense, health and economic prosperity (Pharma and Profits). 


The impact on doctors of greater access to medication is something to consider. With more access to prescription drugs for all, will it be easier for more doctors to just prescribe medications and how will that lead to overprescription? Already there are trends in the United States of overprescription which can result in more harm for the patient. Almost 50% of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in 2018 were written without a diagnosis of infection (Infectious Disease Society of America). As physicians also begin to face physician burnout it is “easy” to “fix” peoples’ reported issues by simply prescribing them medication.


Moreover, utilizing the theories of consequentialism and deontology and the values of responsibility and individualism, a healthcare system that functions under a capitalistic society would be favored. However, this can lead to disparities between the wealthy and poor. An Urban Institute article on health affairs described how health and wealth are often intertwined. Specifically stating how low income Americans are less likely to have health insurance, ready access to primary care, and prescription drugs, which can result in decreases in their overall health (Urban Institute). Additionally, low income Americans tend to be at risk for behavioral factors such as obesity, smoking, low physical activity, and substance abuse. The lower income population cannot always afford fresh, organic foods, or a gym membership to exercise which can lead to obesity and other health complications. A capitalistic system favors the wealthy elite class and can create more separation. Would it bridge the gap between the wealth or poor or extend the gap?


Under the values of responsibility and individuality and using the theories of deontology and consequentialism, the main focus of this last section centers around prioritizing healthcare benefits through prescription drugs on an individual basis. This would encourage healthcare treatment to be more specialized depending on the needs of the patient and give larger access to more prescription drugs. 


Value of Drugs in Society

When exploring and considering the ethical implications of the function of prescription drugs in America, regardless of one's beliefs on the price or distribution of drugs, it is important to take into consideration the value drugs have provided for people in society. As Americans, our society has chosen to value medicine and we have continued to advance and manufacture new drugs. The trends in history have proven that pharmaceutical drugs have indeed led to a longer lifespan and quality of life for many individuals (PhRMA). 

One way prescription drugs have changed society is through treating chronic diseases. A chronic disease describes a disease that is persistent and long-lasting in someone's lifetime. More specifically, people are now able to live with heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes through the availability of specialty drugs. Drug innovation has also helped transform many diseases that were uniformly and often quickly fatal into chronic diseases, such as certain blood cancers and HIV, and has helped give patients more quality time with their loved ones. Another way drugs have developed is in curing many fatal or chronic diseases as a whole. These diseases such as Hepatitis C and chickenpox are no longer attractable by people. 


Even more specifically, many prescription drug advances have been made in the last 100 years, proving how innovative our society has become. Just to highlight a few, the discovery of penicillin in 1928 was the first antibiotic medication and helped change the way bacterial infections and diseases were treated. Phenytoin was developed in 1939 to help treat and manage epilepsy. In 2006 Revlimid(R) was developed as a chemotherapy drug for blood cancer. And most recently, the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine in 2020, helped reduce the burden and outbreak of the pandemic. Regardless of how familiar you are with these products, all of this goes to show just how important medical innovation is to our society, whether we realize it or not.


Conclusion

In examining the complex landscape of branded prescription drug pricing in the United States, this paper has sought to highlight the details often ignored by simple rhetoric. The public often lays all the blame for high drug prices on the feet of pharmaceutical companies, however, a deeper analysis shows that there are many stakeholders, market dynamics and ethical issues to consider. The current system, based in an American capitalist framework, presents significant ethical dilemmas that challenge simplistic designations of blame.


The expense of research and development, characterized by failed clinical trials is one such complexity. The high cost of developing drugs supports the idea that innovators should be rewarded with some level of protection via patents. The patent system, while contributing to higher drug costs, also incentivizes an ongoing cycle of innovation that is in the interest of society as a whole and has been successful in curing and nearly curing many previously fatal diseases. Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers (PBMs) also play a critical yet often misunderstood role in the pricing of prescription drugs. PBMs introduce a layer of negotiation and rebate system which result in the public price of a drug being more akin to a sticker price than the actual patient out of pocket cost. 


Moreover, there are many ethical ideas that impact how this topic and potential solutions should be viewed. These include: consequentialism, utilitarianism, and deontology. Consequentialism highlights the need to consider outcomes of drug pricing on patient access and the overall public health. Utilitarian views advocate for maximizing the greatest good for the greatest number. Deontological ethics emphasize the duty of pharmaceutical companies to ensure their innovations are available to those in need, while also recognizing the moral complexities of sustaining a profitable business capable of ongoing research.


The stakeholders in this system are numerous and their interests diverse.  Yet, after considering many perspectives and gathering information and insight into what goes into the price of drugs in America, the most ethical stance I propose is a system that balances the interests of the patient with those who are not patients, like the pharmaceutical industry. A system where the government covers all generic prescription drugs that fall into a “baseline” of care. To expand upon this idea, I believe that this would encourage pharmaceutical companies to seek innovation and go above the baseline. This is because drug companies would profit more if they went above the “baseline”. I foresee this also creating a healthier population. If every drug on and below baseline was free; it would allow greater access to more drugs. In theory, this should not have too big of an impact on pharmaceutical companies because their innovations as seen from what we value and need in American society would continue to change so the baseline would continue to increase as well.


Given the vast complexity of this topic and the various questions it raises, this paper could not address every idea or facet of research that my study of the pharmaceutical industry and drug pricing. I hope to further my research and studies, and if given the opportunity, I would be interested in speaking and conducting interviews with more people who work in the pharmaceutical industry. Additionally, I would hope to extend my knowledge of the complexities by learning more about PBM’s and the variety of types of patent protection.

Finally, I would enjoy sharing my knowledge with the community around me. Considering how prevalent prescription drugs are in society today, as reported by Mayo Clinic that 70% of Americans take at least one prescription drug a day (Science Daily),  I think it is important to educate people on the in’s and out’s of an industry we all are stakeholders in. Yes, there are many issues inside our healthcare system in regards to the drug industry and pricing of drugs, yet it is just as concerning the lack of knowledge on this topic. Just as people should understand how their car works because it’s a tool that supports their daily life, people should understand how the health system works because it’s a tool that supports their health and wellbeing. My hope for society is that everyone becomes the driver of their own health.


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