Vicious Pharmaceutical Cycle

To cope with rising medical costs, insurers are requiring patients to pay higher premiums and co-payments for drugs. While poor uninsured patients can often get expensive medicine free from drug companies, people with insurance are increasingly finding it difficult to afford these drugs. In response, drug companies are giving money to charities that are specifically set up to help patients pay such costs.

Under this support system, drug-company money keeps patients insured -- and keeps insurers paying for the high-priced medicine.

"It's a win-win situation," says Dana Kuhn, co-founder and president of Patient Services, a Midlothian, Va., charity, which solicits money from drug companies. "Patients are helped and companies are helped. They make a small contribution to help the patient and get much more money back when the insurer pays for the drug."

(Wall Street Journal article)