A $1,000-drug used to treat Hepatitis C was a hot-button topic at a California Senate committee hearing Wednesday.
"We are really concerned about the high cost of specialty drugs, which
have just continued to increase year after year and are going to end up
taking 50 percent of the budget of all of the pharmaceutical costs,"
Pharmacy and Adult and Family Medicine Executive Director at Kaiser
Permanente Dr. Sameer Awsare said.
But drug prices were just one part of the bigger problem of rising
healthcare costs. Speakers said that physician fees and hospital
facility fees are also a major factor. The growing bill means that
consumers, including people with employer-sponsored insurance, are being
asked to shoulder more costs out of pocket. In fact, the Health Care
Costs Institute released a new report this week finding that people with
insurance through work paid 15 percent of their medical expenses out of
pocket in 2013, up 6.9 percent year-over-year.
Read more... Labels: California Senate, drug costs, healthcare costs