DAYTON, Ohio _ Abigail Martin is grateful for the life-saving drugs her 22-month-old son Aston takes for his epileptic seizures, but the listed price _ $180,000 for an eight-week treatment _ leaves the Miami Twp. mother shaking her head.
"For Aston they are life-saving drugs that if he didn't have them he'd be having seizures and that could kill him," Martin said. "It's not just, 'I have heartburn and I need some Prilosec.' It's the fact that something that is saving my child is so expensive."
Fortunately for Martin, her insurance plan covered most of the cost, leaving her to pay the $5,000 deductible. But the high cost for specialty drugs like the one Aston takes _ injectable H.P. Acthar Gel _ contributes to one of the most aggravating aspects of the prescription system for consumers: Few have any idea why some drugs cost so much.
For every generic drug that costs next to nothing, there's a Yervoy. The treatment for skin cancer costs more than $92,000 per user annually, or more than $250 a day.
Consumers are kept hidden from this secret world of drug pricing, which is shrouded in layers of complexity that often confound the principles of basic economics. For example, the Food and Drug Administration approves dozens of new drugs each year _ the 45 in 2015 was a 19-year high. But despite increased competition for the most common drugs on the market, prescription drug prices continue to rise faster than all other types of health care services, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The American public spent $324 billion on prescription drugs in 2015, a 168 percent increase since 2000. While insurance masks some of these increases, the cost to the consumer comes in a variety of ways, from higher insurance premiums, higher deductibles and more cost-sharing.
Higher prices also impact the uninsured or those taking medication a health plan won't cover. And everyone pays for higher prices through government subsidized health plans.
More than 40 million people are enrolled in Medicare Part D prescription plans, which paid out more than $18 billion in 2015 on just the top five most expensive drugs.
