Book
Handbook of Pharmaceutical Public Policy
SSRN
2021
Abstract
When the Medicare program was created in 1965, outpatient prescription drugs were left out of the benefit package, a decision that maintained consistency with standard private insurance plans of the time. Cost was one factor behind the exclusion, but a more fundamental reason related to the role of prescription drugs in medical care: they were not considered central enough to warrant insurance coverage. The role of drugs in health care changed dramatically in the decades after Medicare's enactment, so that today they are indispensable to the treatment of a broad range of conditions. In particular, many chronic conditions that evaded control 40 years ago, such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and asthma, now routinely are managed with medications. In addition to providing clinical benefits, treatment of chronic conditions with medication largely is achieved on an outpatient basis, which lessens both the costs and inconvenience of hospitalizations
Metrics
1 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Handbook of Pharmaceutical Public Policy
- Creators
- Robert Field
- Publisher
- SSRN
- Number of pages
- 1 Online-Ressource (9 p)
- Resource Type
- Book
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991019317399904721