CDC highlights drugs costs in new report

A new report from CDC indicates that millions of U.S. adults are not taking their medications as prescribed due to costs.

According to the data, more than 8% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 64 years, or roughly 9.2 million people, tried to save money by delaying a prescription refill, skipping doses, or taking less medication than prescribed.

Average drug costs did not increase in 2021, but the number of prescriptions did, which caused spending to rise. CDC also found that more than one-third of adults took at least three prescription medications in 2021, while data from IQVIA showed that overall prescription drug costs rose by nearly 5% from 2020 to 2021, to $63 billion.

The CDC report indicated that 23% of adults without health care coverage did not take their medications as prescribed to reduce costs, compared with less than 7% of people who had private insurance. People with disabilities were about three times more likely than those without disabilities to ration their medications, as were people with fair or poor health compared with those with good health.

Additionally, women were more likely to do so compared with men. For the study, researchers with the National Center for Health Statistics evaluated responses to the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, a representative survey of U.S. households.