One of America's largest doctor groups recently issued a stunning recommendation.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is urging its 140,000 members to prescribe generic medications whenever possible, even if newer medicines are available. The ACP explains that people are far more likely to fill an inexpensive generic prescription because skyrocketing drug prices and insurance fees have made brand-name medicines increasingly unaffordable.
That recommendation, though a step in the right direction, doesn't go far enough. Often, the cheapest, safest and most effective treatments don't require a prescription at all.
It's time for doctors and insurers to steer patients to these non-prescription remedies. Doing so would save patients billions while improving their health."
Increasing medical spending above 2% of GDP does not produce proportionate gains in life expectancy. To the contrary, most of the increase in American life expectancy since 1950 results from improvements that would have otherwise reduced medical spending: fewer people smoking, safer cars, etc. In recent years, spending has continued to increase while life expectancy has actually flatlined. Advertisers, lobbyists, and political patronage networks do not want voters to understand that people can live longer and better while spending less.
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"A Prescription-Free Way to Affordable Health
One of America's largest doctor groups recently issued a stunning recommendation.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is urging its 140,000 members to prescribe generic medications whenever possible, even if newer medicines are available. The ACP explains that people are far more likely to fill an inexpensive generic prescription because skyrocketing drug prices and insurance fees have made brand-name medicines increasingly unaffordable.
That recommendation, though a step in the right direction, doesn't go far enough. Often, the cheapest, safest and most effective treatments don't require a prescription at all.
It's time for doctors and insurers to steer patients to these non-prescription remedies. Doing so would save patients billions while improving their health."
The Rx requirement functions mainly to increase spending, which the recipients call revenue. "Americans pay the highest prices in the world for pharmaceuticals....Americans also manage to pay the lowest prices in the world, by far, for over-the-counter drugs, whose prices are known." Since 1951, most Americans have forgotten that prescriptions were generally optional prior to that time: a convenience or insurance form, but rarely a legal requirement. Due to the Rx requirement, and the spending/revenue models that it empowers, costs have increased exponentially without corresponding benefit.
Increasing medical spending above 2% of GDP does not produce proportionate gains in life expectancy. To the contrary, most of the increase in American life expectancy since 1950 results from improvements that would have otherwise reduced medical spending: fewer people smoking, safer cars, etc. In recent years, spending has continued to increase while life expectancy has actually flatlined. Advertisers, lobbyists, and political patronage networks do not want voters to understand that people can live longer and better while spending less.
Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
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