Investigating the Effects of High Drug Costs on US Healthcare Access

This report examines the increasing costs of drugs in the United States, particularly for conditions like hepatitis C, HIV, and cardiovascular diseases, and how these costs strain health insurance coverage. Focusing on hepatitis C medications such as Harvoni, Sovaldi, Epclusa, and Zepatier, the report discusses the challenges faced by patients and the healthcare system due to high drug prices. It proposes a study design involving government subsidies for drug production and research into cheaper alternatives to lower healthcare costs. The study setting is recommended to be in hospitals and drug production factories, targeting patients and caregivers affected by the changes in drug costs. Statistical methods, including exploratory, descriptive, and quantitative analysis, are suggested to analyze the causes of increased drug prices and evaluate the effectiveness of proposed solutions. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for strategies to reduce drug production costs to improve healthcare affordability.

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Health Care Systems
Student’s name
Institution
Abstract
Objective: To describe how the increased costs of drugs in the United States for some ailments
like hepatitis, HIV, and cardiovascular-related ailment have increased the general costs of
medicines beyond the cover of the health insurance covers. The main ailment put into
consideration here is the hepatitis C sickness.
Key Words: Cost of medicine, health insurance cover, hepatitis C, study design, cost reduction,
medical patients, American health care.

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The study design on increased medical costs in the USA
There are diverse aspects that are considered in the production and delivery of medicine
into the care facility as well as the quality of the care offered to the patient. However, due to the
sophisticated technology used and the increased cost of mass medical production, the overall cost
of medicine has been huge for the patients1. For instance, the CDC report of 2015 indicated that
most Americans die of heart-related ailments as the patients numbered to 800,000. As a result,
the Americans have to pay about $1 Billion per a single day so as to keep the patients alive2.
Another aspect that makes the cost of medicine expensive is the Epinephrine autoinjector
commonly called the EpiPen that costs $900 from $90 a decade ago.
In order to curb the continuous increase in the costs of these drugs that amass the overall
increase in the cost of medicine, it is effective to impose a strategy that will lower the cost. This
study design may include the proper public financing and use of cheaper production processes
for the drug manufacturing3.
Introduction
There are many issues that arise in the nursing sector including poor care services,
knowledge gaps in nursing, unavailability of the registered nurses and the increase in the costs of
medicines and care to the patients. In the United States alone, we are facing a number of these
challenges in the daily operations. However, this article will strictly discuss the issue of the high
cost of the hepatitis C medication both in the public and the private sectors in the healthcare
industry due to the increased costs of drugs. These drugs include the likes of Harvoni which
costs $87,800, Sovaldi costing $73,800, Epclusa costing $73,300, and Zepatier costing $52,600
among others that are used in the cure of hepatitis C ailment. Despite the fact that there is

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medical insurance cover including the personal covers, Medicare or the Obamacare, and the
newly introduced Trumpcare, the drugs being introduced in the market with a higher price tag
that makes it difficult to be catered for by these covers.
Methods
The continuous increase in the costs of drugs here in the United States not only affects
the patients’ ability to afford the medication but also the ability of the state to kick the hepatitis C
ailment out of the nation4. Thus, implementing an appropriate study design can effectively aid in
this reduction. For instance, the production process of these drugs can be subsidized by the
government through the contribution by the taxpayers’ money in the purchase of the raw
materials used5. In addition, the funding can be used in further research so as to determine the
cheaper means and alternatives of these drugs production that may result in cheaper healthcare to
the masses. Once the subsidizing has been done, the production of massive drugs that are
cheaper in price is attained since most costs that could have been paid by the customer while
purchasing the medicine has already been catered for in the production costs6. Better research on
the production process may even reduce the costs of production of these drugs as machines, such
as robots, can be used instead of the expensive human labor. The efficiency that will be attained
by the used of these robots will be increased when compared to that of the human power as they
are programmed to work in a fixed schedule minimizing chances of errors.
The study setting can be best set on the natural participant’s setting in the hospitals and
drug production factories since the design is quantitatively based. Since the cause of the
expensive medication is increased drug production costs, the setting can never be on the
consumers or the clinics and care homes7. Thus, these recommended strategies can be best

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applied in the areas where the medicines are being produced which include the drug processing
firms and other medical research firms and laboratories.
The population considered in this study is the patients and their caregivers since they are
the ones affected by the changes in the costs of the hepatitis C drugs. These persons are eligible
for the research as they are the daily users of drugs and any slight change in the costs of the
drugs and other medical factors affect them. However, these drugs are effective as they can be
taken on a daily dose with or without the combination of other medicines and have high
efficiency in the hepatitis C treatment.
The variable of the implementation of this study design includes a better change in the
costs of the drug production costs that, in return, reduce the overall cost of healthcare. However,
the type of ailment that a patient is being diagnosed with varies as some are more costly than the
others.
The statistical methods used in this study design include the basic and specific methods.
For instance, the exploratory and descriptive methods, which are the basic methods of statistics,
can be used in the extraction of data from the affected individuals that include the nurses and the
patients who are affected by the direct increase in the cost of the medicines. However, in order to
allocate the exact cause of the increase in the cost of drugs, a more detailed statistical method,
precisely the quantitative analysis8, has to be done on the figures presented by the medical
procurement process. From this analysis, the change of the cost of medicine that has been as a
result of an increase in the drug production process has been identified. For instance, the EpiPen
used to cost $90 some years ago back in the 1980’s but it currently costs $900.

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