High drug costs prop up counterfeit pharma

Now, the field of medicine is able to achieve seemingly miraculous results, through organ transplantation, reviving patients who have been "clinically" dead, and curing supposedly "incurable diseases." Medical miracles are not cheap, however, and the costs of medical care and drugs have risen (and continue to rise) at a near-astronomical rate. Consequently, neither private medical insurance plans nor Medicare will now cover certain procedures, treatments, and medicines. In the future, with continuing reform of the US healthcare system, even fewer procedures, treatments, and medications might will be covered. Certainly, some medical treatment will be "rationed," and particular categories of people (such as the elderly) may be systematically denied the coverage they need. As a result of all this, medical- and health-related crime and deviance will inevitably rise. Medical insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid fraud, which is already prevalent today, will increase exponentially. Smugglers will "bootleg" ever more pharmaceuticals into the US, and a large, thriving, nationwide black market will develop for those who cannot afford to buy uncovered medications. More medicines and diagnostic equipment will be stolen, and back- street medical procedures using such stolen equipment may well be offered for cash with no questions asked. Armed robberies of valuable pharmaceuticals from drug stores and super- markets will increase, too. Bribery to obtain insurance-uncovered or rationed medical care (or, indeed, any kind of medical care where demand exceeds supply) will likely mushroom. This is actually common in some countries around the world. Counterfeiting expensive pharmaceuticals will be prevalent, and medical frauds of all kinds will be very widespread. Many of these frauds will be directed at the elderly population as it continues to increase in size. The elderly will be particularly vulnerable because they are most likely to be denied coverage for certain medical procedures or treatments. For instance, private health insurance and Medicare will both refuse to cover a woman in her mid-80s for potentially life-saving heart-bypass surgery. As a result, she will be a prime candidate for victimization by medical fraud that offers her affordable, but bogus, treatment. There is already a thriving international black market in human organs (Schepper-Hughes 2009). Kidneys are obtained from poor individuals in impoverished countries for relatively modest sums of money. This cash allows the donors to purchase luxuries, such as a small automobile, educate their children, or simply sustain their families for a few months. The organs are sometimes transferred quickly to a hospital in the donor's own country for transplant surgery. But on other occasions they are transported to the US or another Western country. In the US, obtaining an organ for transplantation in this fashion is illegal. Nevertheless, the practice will undoubtedly increase greatly in the future. Where medical care and medicines become exorbitantly expensive, cheaper ways to obtain them, even when these are illicit, will be sought. Where there are shortages of medical care or medicines, perhaps because of rationing, other means of obtaining them, even if deviant, will surely be employed. As the cost and the difficulty of obtaining medical care and medicines increase, the implications for increased crime and deviance become almost limitless.