Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
October 5, 2011
Dear Editor:
Recently, you reported on prescription drug abuse by Medicare beneficiaries. As a public health undergraduate, I believe the underlying issue is that taxpayers bear the burden of this prescription drug abuse. Medicare covers 12% of those with health insurance in the US, but consumes 20% of total national health expenditures. It is urgent that beneficiaries only receive the necessary prescriptions and that abusers have limited access.
A possible solution is to implement a requirement that two physicians must sign off on the prescription, if there is need for persistent use of a drug[1]. By doing so, there is an additional safety barrier that Medicare abusers have to overcome to obtain excessive amounts of drugs. Although there could be loopholes, including abusers could potentially go to different doctors to receive multiple prescriptions, this remedy could serve as a primary screening process to be further improved.
Sincerely,
Sandy Ha
sandyjha@berkeley.edu
I also wrote a response to that article, and I agree that the main reason this is made into such a huge issue is due to the fact that citizens pay for the costs in taxes. Although most people are not Medicare drug abusers, many Americans will make an uproar about any cause of increase in taxes. However, I don't see how your recommendation of having two doctors sign off on a prescription would do much to stop drug abuse. Who are these two doctors? An abuser could easily go to a third doctor. At the very least, there needs to be accurate and up-to-date electronic database where every doctor can access each patient's prescription history. These are already being implemented statewide, which prevent abusers from obtaining excess prescription drugs within their states. The next step would be to connect these state databases to one another so abusers could not go state-hopping to obtain more drugs. However, there are always going to be loopholes, such as the ability to purchase drugs illegally online.
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