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ELECTION 2004 Volume 351:1375-1377 September 30, 2004 Number 14 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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In 2002, the United States spent $162.4 billion on prescription drugs. Government has traditionally played a smaller role in purchasing prescription drugs than in paying for health care services overall,¹ accounting for 22 percent of prescription-drug spending as compared with 44 percent of all spending on personal health. The Medicare Modernization Act adds a prescription-drug benefit to the Medicare program, thereby reshaping the government's role as a payer for prescription drugs: the federal government's share of the country's prescription-drug spending can be expected to increase to between 30 and 40 percent during the first two years. The prices that the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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