Do You Have a Billion Dollars Lying Around?

We had an interesting reading associated with Tuesday's lecture in my Health Care in Scandinavia course. The reading can be found at http://rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9169/. Pretty much what this fact sheet says is that over a billion dollars a year could be saved if insurance companies lowered co-payments on prescription pharmaceuticals. This assumption is based on the data, which showed that for every $10 rise in co-payment, compliance decreased by 5%, and if there is a higher compliance in taking pharmaceuticals by reducing co-payments for those sick or at a high-risk of becoming sick and higher co-payments for low-risk patients, then there is a greater proportion of healthier patients, which could result in 80,000 to 90,000 fewer hospitalizations and 30,000 to 35,000 fewer ER visits. All of this equates to a savings of $1,000,000,000. That's a lot of money.