Americans think prescription drug costs are too high

Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of a survey (accompanying commentary) conducted in February, asking Americans about their sentiments regarding prescription drug costs. Highlights include each of the following ideas garnering at least 80% support among respondents: requiring drug ads to include list prices, making it easier for generic drugs to be sold, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and allowing the importing of drugs from Canada. If these sentiments are truly reflective of the broader population (and if these issues are important to voters), there is hope that elected officials might change some of the current policies.

Fortunately, two-thirds of the respondents who report taking prescription medicines report that paying for their prescriptions is very easy or somewhat easy. On the other hand, almost 30% of respondents (presumably of those who report taking prescription medication) say that they do not take medicine as prescribed because of costs (e.g. not filling a prescription or reducing doses). Prescription drug cost is likely to be one of the issues raised under the broader issue of rising healthcare costs in the next election.