Prescription Drug Trends: A Chartbook

Prescription Drug Trends – A Chartbook, an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Sonderegger Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about trends in prescription drug coverage, spending, prices, use, and industry structure. Although overall coverage for prescription drugs has increased over the last decade, about a quarter of the nonelderly and a third of Medicare beneficiaries have no drug coverage. Spending for prescriptions is one of the fastest growing components of health care, with increases affected more by increased utilization and changes in the types of drugs used (from older drugs to newer, more expensive drugs) than by price increases for existing drugs.