In her article in the LA Times, Lisa Zamosky explores some of the reasons even generic medicine prices can rise at unprecedented rates. Amanda Greene is one example: she is a patient living with Lupus who has seen generic prices of her pain management medication double in the last year. She relies on these lidocaine patches to manage her pain but to save money, she uses the medication sparingly.
“When I’m lying here in pain I ask myself: Is it patch-worthy?”
Generic medicines have saved individuals and governments billions of dollars, drastically improving access to medicines around the world. However even generic medicine prices fluctuate drastically due to unpredictable market behaviour: In addition to manufacturing delays and increased demands, companies may halt production if the price falls too low, as the product is no longer profitable. This could mean the medicine is no longer available on the market, as is the case for 12 year old arthritis patient Abigail. In other instances, the lack of competition allows other companies to raise their prices. Whatever the case, these all have a negative impact on access to affordable medicine for individuals.
Lisa includes a few tips for keeping medicine prices down by shopping around and checking for discounts. These are great recommendations for saving some money on your prescriptions today, but we also think people shouldn’t have to shop around to get the best price on the medicines they need. Neither does Amanda Greene, who has signed our Declaration for Affordable Medicine.
Join Amanda and thousands of others by adding your voice in support of affordable medicine: www.accessourmedine.com
Read the full article here.
