Fact #1: 45.8 million Americans under the age of 65 lacked health insurance coverage in 2004.

Fact #2: In 2005, the cost of health care insurance for family coverage surpassed the annual salary of a minimum-wage worker.

Fact #3: Drug benefits of many employer insurance plans are being reduced every year. These reductions in drug benefits include steps such as higher premiums for drug benefits, higher co-payments on drug purchases, higher annual deductibles, tiered cost sharing, annual dollar limits on drug purchases, tightening eligibility rules and completely cutting drug benefits all together. This means more and more individuals are becoming underinsured when it comes to prescription drug coverage.

Fact #4: U.S. National Health Care Expenditures per Capita rose by 123% from 1990 to 2004. In that same time frame Prescription Drug Expenditures increased 78.6%. Prescription drug spending is one of the fastest growing components of national health care spending. In fact, in 1999, national prescription drug spending increased an astounding 18.2%, compared to an 5.2% increase for physician and clinical services and a 5.0% increase for hospital care.

Fact #5: Retail prescription drug prices increased an average of 8.3% a year from 1994 to 2004 (from an average of $28.67 to $63.59), more than triple the average annual inflation rate of 2.5%.

Fact #6: A recent AARP Bulletin reported that some individuals have to resort to very desperate (and unnecessary) measures to obtain their medications. The report stated that