While the overall cost of health care is rising at an annual rate of about 5 percent, the cost of prescription medications is rising at an annual rate of nearly 20 percent. These huge price increases deny thousands of Pennsylvania residents many of them seniors the medicine they need. As a result, the health and well-being of a significant portion of our population is being compromised. Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies argue that prices are high because research and development costs are high.
But prices in other Western nations where research takes place are not as high, and drug companies around the globe are making robust profits. The prices of some medications in Pennsylvania are nearly double what they are in Canada. In some cases, the price differential is even worse. In fact, many people from Pennsylvania and other states like Ohio and New York now take bus trips across the border to Canada just to buy their prescription medications. Seniors in the United States which supposedly has the most advanced health-care system in the world should not have to travel to another country to get affordable medication.