Prescription drugs are becoming a more important part or a bigger part of our overall health care, medical care for seniors. People are going to the hospital less, having less surgery, and most of the important breakthroughs in helping our health, controlling it, and maintaining our health, curing illness have come through pharmaceutical protocols rather than more invasive protocols like surgery. And it's growing by leaps and bounds. Keeping costs under control. That growth is the key reason overall spending on prescription drugs is rising 10 percent a year, roughly twice the rate of the increase in overall health spending.
Nobody has more of a stake in the solution than the pharmaceutical industry.
Alan Holmer is president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, the industry's leading trade group. We support expanded drug coverage for seniors, but we feel it's very important that it be done the right way. But the industry didn't always support a drug benefit under Medicare. Ray Gilmartin is chairman and chief executive officer of Merck, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies. The big concern about a government-run program is the level of bureaucracy, the amount of regulation put on it, and price controls.