Americans Should Import Prescription Drugs

Brilliant Essays
The cost of prescription drugs in the United States is rising quickly, many Americans can no longer afford the basics that are necessary for some to live. The united states as a country spends more on health care than any other industrialized society, nearly $8,508, as of 2013, was spent. But many prescription drugs such as, Epi pens, are not covered by the average health care plan. Health Care plans are expensive and do not cover the cost of many drugs costing Americans several hundreds to thousands a year for prescription drugs. Canada offers nearly the same drugs for cheaper, but at what cost. This brings up the question, should we import prescription drugs to make it more affordable for the average american. According to Colleen Newvine …show more content…
Taking this case into consideration there are alternatives to importation. According to joseph Bast a more effective way to lower the cost of drugs would be to streamline the approval process for new and generic drugs and limit lawsuit abuse, which would contribute to lowering the cost of drugs. When taking into consideration the potential problems when importing prescription drugs, a safer way to go would be to reduce the amount of regulations on the testing of new drugs, many of the regulations are unimportant and the many companies only follow them for a fear of facing a lawsuit. If the unnecessary regulations were taken out, there would be less time to produce new drugs. Many companies also stay away from making new prescriptions because of all of the regulations that they are forced to adhere to, many that may not apply to the current drug that they are testing. This in turn makes the price of drugs go up, because when there are less new drugs being created there are only the companies that produced the drugs to begin …show more content…
"The Pros and Cons of Importing Drugs from Canada." News -. N.p., 19 Apr. 2004. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
Newvine News Service, Colleen. "Conference Explores Pros and Cons of Drug Reimportation." Conference Explores Pros and Cons of Drug Reimportation. N.p., 3 Nov. 2003. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
Retail Drug Expenditures and Spending by Payer. Digital image. N.p., 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2016. the U.S Spends More on Healthcare than Other Industrialized Countries. Digital image. The Huffington Post, 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.
Weil, Andrew. Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future. New York: Hudson Street, 2009. Print.
Reid, T. R. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. New York: Penguin, 2009.

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