STAT Plus: Prescription drugs may be more affordable than you think — unless you pay cash
Amid growing complaints that many Americans cannot afford their prescription medicines, most people in the U.S. who have insurance are paying lower out-of-pocket costs, but cash-paying customers are shelling out significantly more than five years ago, according to a new analysis.
Overall, the average amount paid out-of-pocket for a prescription by all patients — those with and without insurance — held steady at $10.67 in 2019, which was unchanged from the year before up just 33 cents since 2015. But commercially insured prescription costs declined from $10.83 to $8.90 between 2015 and 2019, according to the analysis by the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science.
