In recent years, the rapid and significant upward trend in prescription drug prices has become a focus of national debate involving multiple actors including pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurers, health care providers, patients, and legislators. This is particularly true for "specialty" medications that are used to treat complex, chronic conditions (cancer, hepatitis C, HIV) and often require special handling and administration. In August 2015, the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll confirmed that the American public is broadly supportive of a number of actions aimed at keeping drug costs under control.1 These include allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers with regard to drug pricing for patients on Medicare (83), limiting the amount companies can charge for high-cost medications for potentially chronic conditions such as hepatitis and cancer (76), allowing patients to import cheaper medications from Canada (72), and requiring manufacturers to disclose information to the public on how drug prices are set (86).
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