The healthcare crisis in America is real and has been an issue for many years. A recent Gallup poll revealed that three in 10 Americans forgo or defer treatment due to the high cost of healthcare. Continual delays in seeking medical services carry consequences that involve higher healthcare costs and poorer health outcomes.
We cannot afford to wait any longer to address this issue. There is an urgent need to find solutions to our healthcare crisis now.
Rural Healthcare Crisis
The rural healthcare crisis is years in the making and increasingly getting worse. A range of issues including rural hospital closures and a growing physician shortage, is wreaking havoc not only on rural patients’ access to quality healthcare, but the economic well-being of their communities.
Families in communities have a harder time accessing quality healthcare, with services in remote communities much more limited than in denser metro areas. The wave of rural hospital closures is now exacerbating the problem – putting rural communities at serious risk of becoming “health hazard zones.”
Rural communities deserve access to high quality healthcare and adequate funding for healthcare programs and infrastructure. It is time to start taking action on the issues facing rural Americans because their lives and livelihoods depend on it.
Prescription Drug Costs
Prescription drug prices are out of control and can be crushing for patients. Nationally, out-of-pocket costs for some specialty drugs can run from $4,000 to more than $11,000 per year. Due to this, patients may either skip taking their medication or delay refilling the prescription.
We must break the monopoly pricing power of the drug corporations and change the laws to restore competitive pricing and speed generics to market. And we need transparency in pricing from the drug companies and the pharmacy benefit received from insurers so we can see who is getting rich at the expense of people fighting deadly diseases.
