The article Political Economy of Medicare was very interesting based on what was brought up in the paper. For instance, in the article, it talked about how a reduction in user costs for prescription drugs yielded an increase in user spending on those very same drugs. At the same time, this increased compliance and led to less spending on other medical needs such as hospitalization. This is a very interesting point to bring up, as it can go either way, in my opinion. On one hand, lower prices would mean that people are able to overcome the financial barrier in obtaining their medications. By obtaining those medications, people are less likely to have long-term problems leading to hospital admission. On the other hand, financial barriers arent the only thing holding individuals back. There is a key aspect of adherence which includes education. If people are not taking their drugs correctly, or if they are not taking it at the right time it can also affect their health. So, even though they do have the medication, they still need to take it properly.

Another aspect of the article that was interesting was that one working individual contributes $1,250 for $5,000 in benefits for each Medicare patient. This is very controversial as there is a transfer of money from currently working individuals to those who used to work and may now be older or have a disability. This is very interesting to think about considering the previous articles we looked at pertaining to the costs of healthcare relative to the new advancements in technology. With new technological advances, I believe that there is an upward trajectory in the cost of healthcare. However, I do not believe that the individual contributions for Medicare will increase at the same rate. For this reason, many treatments and healthcare regimens may become unaffordable. At the same time, if individual contributions did increase, this may cause controversy amongst the currently employed working force.

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