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Lessons from Jon Barron
Unhealthy Health Care Relationships
In this week's excerpt from Lessons from the Miracle Doctors, Jon Barron identifies who pays for the unhealthy relationship between drug companies, medical doctors, and government regulators.
"Everybody in every country is a victim, but because the U.S. is the only major industrialized nation that does not regulate the prices or profits of drug companies, prescription drugs generally cost 25 to 40 percent more than in other countries. With the exception of health insurance premium payments, prescription drug expenses represent the single largest component of out-of pocket spending on health care (17 percent of the total health care dollar, on average). Prescription drug expenses account for as much as those spent on physician care, vision care services, and medical supplies combined. For 75 percent of elderly Americans, prescription drugs are their single biggest expense.
There's the cost in health to consider as well. In 2002, there were approximately 3.34 billion prescriptions filled—about eleven drugs for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. No human being or computer program can keep track of all the possible side effects of this many drugs. The problem is that each drug affects the body chemistry in multiple (hundreds, even thousands) of ways. As soon as you add a second drug, the interaction between the two drugs increases the possibilities to tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of possible chemical interactions in the body. Add a third drug, and you're into the millions. Make that ten or fifteen drugs and you're dealing with numbers beyond comprehension. In one study, an alarming one-in-four patients suffered observable side effects from prescription drugs.
Don't despair—a new field of expertise called polypharmacy is being created to "deal" with this problem. What a joke!"
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We hope you enjoyed this week's excerpt from Lessons from the Miracle Doctors. Next week, we'll take a look at how problems in the health care system don't stop with the drug companies, medical doctors, and government regulators. If you enjoyed this excerpt and would like to get a copy of the book for yourself, please visit one of the following resources.
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