Health Care Reform and Effect on Prescription Drug Costs Research Paper

Health Care Reform and Effect on Prescription Drug Costs - Research Paper Example Introduction The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, better known as Health Care reform law enacted on March 23, 2010 have been viewed with both appreciation and concerns by the major stakeholders of the health care system. Healthcare reform legislation’s general impact and consequences on the prices of prescription drugs are not quite easy to comprehend, by the fact that certain provisions will not take effect for several years, courts actions and rulings, conflicts and contentions at state level, or partisan stand in Congress and Senate could cause significant delays or major revisions to the legislation. Nonetheless, there is going to have significant impact on the healthcare economy and bottom line of manufacturers as there are many provisions in the health-care-reform law that are likely to have the direct or indirect consequence of increasing the volume of product sales that include prescript ion drugs. The supply chain of prescription drugs from manufacturers to consumers has a series of stakeholders, for example, wholesalers, pharmacies, and insurers. The impact of any legislation on prices is quite complex due to intricate mechanisms of fixing prices that involve many stakeholders in the value chain. The price paid by a pharmacy to buy a brand-name drug from the manufacturers is generally not the net cost of buying the drug from the manufacturer because manufacturers give discounts/rebates on brand name drugs to insurers. There are many different prices paid along the supply chain. It will be interesting to analyze the impact of new reform law on the prescription drugs. Healthcare System before the Enactment of Reform Law The current U.S. system of federal healthcare came into being in 1965 through Congress’s amendment of the Social Security Act and the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare began as a national health insurance program for persons age 65 and over, regardless of income or wealth. In 1973, coverage was extended for those on disability for at least two consecutive years. Medicare provides enrollees with a basic program of hospital insurance and supplementary assistance program to aid in paying healthcare bills (Raffel and Raffel 1994). Through this, everyone who is old enough receives some healthcare.   Medicaid is also a national health insurance program, but it is administered by states and it can potentially assist a broader range of people than Medicare. It serves to provide services for the â€Å"categorically needy,† such as those who are blind, aged, or disabled, and for the â€Å"medically needy,† those who can afford to live, but cannot afford to pay for medical care (Raffel and Raffel 1994). People may enroll in these independent health insurance plans through their employer or on their own if they can pay for it.  It is meant for a person with high medical costs and is not old enough. H owever, financial burdens greatly limit the system’s accessibility. Census estimates from 1999 indicate that 43 million Americans live without health insurance even though 75 percent of them have a full-time job or live in a household with at least one member working full-time (Mueller 2001) for Medicare. The Americans

Negative Effects of Mass Media on Teenagers Research Paper

Negative Effects of Mass Media on Teenagers - Research Paper Example Reason of creating this distinct research preference can be traced in the timing of each media introduced to the masses for consumption. Television has been discussed as the most common media affecting society and teenagers in particular because it is widely available to all classes in a society (Richards 3). Richards has examined the data set of the nationally representative ELS: 2002 research (third wave completed in 2006) conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to find the overall impact of mass media (32). According to Richards, media has affected the altruistic pattern of volunteerism and regularity pattern of college attendance. It has been established on the basis of ELS: 2002 dataset that video games and television decreased the level of volunteerism but more frequent usage of internet has promoted the feeling of volunteerism among teenagers. As states Richarson: â€Å"†¦some of these coefficients and exponentiated odds may appear to be substant ively small, but are statistically significant. This is driven in part by the immense size of the data set used in the analysis (ELS:2002)† (81). Internet has caused some negative repercussions also on teenagers’ behavior pattern other than positive impacts. Negative effects of internet are related to â€Å"somewhat counterintuitive† as perceived from volunteerism’s perspective (Richards 82). ... cted negatively on a teenager’s attendance in college, as hours in a week devoted to video reduced college attendance by 4.6 percent for each single hour increase in playing games through video but in the case of internet surfing, things did not create a negative impact. As per data analysis, a teenager’s chances of attending classes increased with the relative frequency of internet surfing. The level of percentages in changed adolescent behavior when totaled creates a significant impression, particularly when we analyze the data on internet surfing by teenagers (Richards 82). One reason for the negative impact of television and video on teenagers’ behavior (Richards 82) could be that these means of mass communication are majorly used for entertainment purpose only, not for any educational pursuit. Negative effects of internet are negligible because this medium of mass communication offers two-way transaction for various educational pursuits. On the other hand, t elevision and video games serve the time passing purpose of teenagers only. It can be stated that in overall, television and video consumption in 2002 affected to a certain extent the altruism behavior of volunteerism in teenagers in 2006. Both mediums also affected the teenagers’ possibilities of going to college in 2006. However, it can not be derived from the analyses which medium impacted teenagers negatively and which medium of mass communication impacted them positively (Richards 82). Richards (83) has analyzed this trend in teenagers from cultural perspective, as certain cultural norms related to excessive watching of television and playing of video games come in the way of selflessness. Remaining involved all the time in watching television or playing video games uninterruptedly becomes a block