Guests of the Nation
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A Price on Living
If your grandparent came to you and asked you to help them pay for their medical bills, would you help them pay it? The obvious answer is yes, but this is a problem most senior citizens today are facing. Drugs seniors need, possibly life saving, have risen dramatically over the last five years, making it harder and harder for them to afford these drugs. The problem is that American-made prescription drugs cost more in America than anywhere in the world.
Because of the extreme prices of drugs, senior citizens are largely the ones who take the toll. While senior citizens make up 12.4% of the United State's population, they account for over one-third of the drug expenditures (Wong). Approximately 80% of the nation's senior citizens take at least one prescription drug every day and fill at least 18 prescriptions per year (Wong). The major problem is, that the majority of Medicare enrollees have zero drug coverage.
Not only do senior citizens use a disproportionate amount of the prescription drugs, they are also likely to be living on limited incomes...