Reasonable Rx: Solving the Drug Price Crisis

Chapter One. Drugs and Drug Prices

	If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
	--Dolly Parton

Is it any wonder that there’s such a huge outcry about prescription drugs, particularly their high cost? Consider this: If your only source of information was commercial television, no one could fault you for thinking that GERD was a public health crisis in the United States on the scale of AIDS in Africa. In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, you can reasonably assume that American TV watchers saw dozens of advertisements encouraging them to check with their doctors to make sure they don’t need to treat GERD with the Purple Pill.

What’s GERD? It’s the acronym for gastrointestinal esophageal reflux disease, commonly known as acid ...