This will not be major headline news anytime soon but it’s true. Last week our friends at RxRights blogged about new data from the Commonwealth Fund showing that the number of Americans ages 19-64 who did not fill prescriptions due to cost decreased to a depressing 35 million in 2014 from the even more depressing figure of 50 million in 2012. Obamacare, lower unemployment, and a stronger economy in which people feel more secure paying for even very expensive medications are largely responsible. Minus the very expensive medications – that’s all good stuff.
And how about international online pharmacies and personal drug importation? Well, just yesterday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that about 2% of Americans are still buying medication from foreign countries. That’s about 5 million Americans who would potentially go without needed medication if it were not for lower cost foreign medication sold by safe international online pharmacies.
I did not use the word “potentially” loosely. Some of those five million are getting nabbed by rogue online pharmacies, resulting in too many Americans taking substandard, adulterated, or counterfeit medications. If those people are informed properly they will not be victims. PharmacyChecker.com is there for you: if you are one of the 35 million Americans wondering whether you can afford that medication prescribed by your doctor, we’re doing better than ever at empowering you with information that helps you get the medications you need at a price you can afford while steering clear of rogue online pharmacies.
It’s important to remember how dangerous it is to not take the medications you need. One expert at CDC stated: “People who do not take their medication as prescribed have more hospitalizations, emergency room visits and an increased burden of their illness.”
It’s important to note that the CDC report provided lower figures on how many Americans are going without prescribed medications due to cost than the Commonwealth Fund reported: about one in 10. We’re going to look at the data in the coming weeks and provide you some guidance on this discrepancy. But clearly the overall numbers have gotten better in the last two years.
We thrive on these better numbers – more consumers accessing the healthcare they need –but with tens of millions of Americans saying they can’t afford their meds there’s so much more work to be done!
