Overview of the Issue
One of the primary issues in healthcare that requires attention is the increase in prices for medicines. The seriousness of this trend is due to the fact that with rising prices, many individuals lose access to medical services. This may cause a lack of insurance or insufficient financial condition.
Existing Strategies to Address the Issue
At the moment, strategies are being developed to limit this problem. An example would be the Inflation Reduction Act (ERA) of 2022, which concerns the direct transformation of pricing policy within Medicare insurance. Research stated that “the IRA’s drug pricing reforms include Medicare drug price negotiation, Medicare inflationary rebates, and Medicare Part D redesign;” (Sachs, 2022, para. 2). Currently, there are such policies as discounts and rebate based on the average price paid by other purchasers in Medicaid or the 340B Program (Desai & McWilliams, 2018).
Stakeholders Impacted
Any change in health policy has a direct impact on stakeholders. Thus, when the cost of medicines increases, stakeholders also experience some difficulties (Grachev et al., 2021). This is because when prices rise, the costs of the involved agents of activity increase, and imperfect payment mechanisms arise. There is growing public awareness about the problem as “nearly 30% of American adults have skipped medication because of cost, and one-quarter of those taking prescription drugs report difficulty affording medication” (Korenstein et al., 2021, p. 489). Despite this, there is little research regarding the study of mindfulness and the support of society.
Ethical and Legal Considerations
The main ethical consideration of increasing the cost of medicines is reducing the availability of medicines for some segments of the population. Research stated that “the future price of a drug is routinely ignored and treated as unknowable during the ethical evaluation of the clinical trials that support its development” (Hey, 2020, p. 29). Regarding legal considerations, the problem is that the government does not have the ability to regulate the cost of these goods.
Implications for Nursing
For nursing, this issue also has a special meaning. Hence, in some hospitals, there may be a shortage of medicines, which will affect the quality of work of nurses. Moreover, the increase in prices affects the decrease in the quality of healthcare services and the satisfaction of individuals (Hamm, 2019). Strategies that can be used to limit the problem are the implementation of drag racing policies and staff training to find effective alternatives to expensive medications.
Reference
Desai, S., & McWilliams, J. M. (2018). Consequences of the 340B drug pricing program. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(6), 539-548. Web.
Hamm, N. (2019). How high drug prices affect patients. Managed Healthcare Executive. Web.
Hey, S. P. (2020). Why high drug pricing is a problem for research ethics. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 17(1), 29-35. Web.
Korenstein, D., Kaltenboeck, A., Mamoor, M., & Chimonas, S. (2021). Priceless knowledge: Attitudes and awareness around drug pricing among US medical students. Medical Science Educator, 31(2), 489-494. Web.
Rachev, B., Uyei, J., Singh, R., Kowal, S., & Johnson, C. E. (2021). Stakeholder point of view on prescription drug affordability-a systematic literature review and content analysis. Health Policy, 125(9), 1158-1165. Web.
Sachs, R. (2022). Understanding The democrats’ drug pricing package. Health Affairs. Web.