It is not a secret that today many Americans face financial problems related to healthcare. The government claims to do the best for the citizens and provides them with various programs that are created to be beneficial for the general public, especially for the vulnerable populations, but is it so?
To my mind, if the government is willing to provide the funds for innovative drugs, it is great. In the perspective of making healthcare services and medicines affordable for the population, their wish to reduce the prices is decent. If the organizations that were creating the drug tend to make the prices high, the government should influence them. Still, I am not sure that they are willing to do so always. In other words, if the government would be allowed to change the prices and make them lower, what would forbid it to make them higher in other situations?
Today healthcare is a rather costly affair, and many individuals are not able to afford long-lasting treatment. As a rule, health problems are often faced by vulnerable populations because they do not have a decent environment every day. That is why they catch different diseases and, over time, occur to be not able to pay for the needed services and medicines. After consulting a doctor, they are given a prescription for the drugs that are supposed to help. Unfortunately, patients cannot change the prescribed medication for the alternative one even if it costs less. According to the laws, only every drug can be used or its approved generic copy (Engelberg, 2015). As a result, many people give up and stop the treatment earlier than it is needed. In this way, the rates of disability and death increase. Some people also do not have enough money to buy products of high quality and often eat fast food, which leads to obesity. Even those who can afford better products yield to junk food because it is tasty and easy to get. As a consequence, more than half of all Americans today are overweight. Still, attention is paid to the prevention of the major causes of the diseases but not at their treatment.
American healthcare costs are changing every year, and they only become higher and higher. However, the positive outcomes of such funds are not seen. Healthcare providers are talking about the diseases, but they seem to forget that they are a healthcare system, and they should be concerned about their patients but not the illnesses. It would be better if the medical industry turns towards the treatment of the patients instead of just taking measures to prevent them. When people are already ill, prevention will not already help. That is why the main purpose of a healthcare system is to alter. It should accept innovations and implement decent low-cost ways of treatment. Of course, it does not mean that they should forget about the prevention of the diseases but the current condition of the population is to be underlined. In other words, the American healthcare system needs transformation. To save the health of the population, the changes are to influence not only medicine but also industry and government (Escape fire, 2015).
So it can be concluded that if the US government is ready to change and give Americans something more than the programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which still have a range of drawbacks, it should. As the pharmaceutical firm gained assistance, it should be able to reach a compromise with the government and accept lower prices for drugs. Otherwise, what is the sense to create the treatment using the money of taxpayers and for taxpayers if they are not able to afford it? The health of the nation is to be improved; it is not just a fight for the best achievements in the sphere.
References
Engelberg, A. (2015). How government policy promotes high drug prices[Press release]. Web.
Escape aire: The fight to rescue American healthcare. (2015). Web.