Women pay the price for rising drug costs

What you probably already know: Women are cutting back on medication as prescription drug prices skyrocket along with overall health care costs. Women are more likely to skip prescriptions, use an over-the-counter alternative, cut pills in half or skip doses altogether to save money, according to a 2026 KFF (formerly the Kaiser Foundation) analysis of drug costs. Women are also more likely to skip care (38% have done so in the past year, compared to 32% of men). And, along with Black and Hispanic adults, parents, those with low incomes and the uninsured, are disproportionately burdened by health care debt. All told, a staggering 40% of U.S. adults have some type of health care debt.

Why it matters: In a statement to Congress Feb. 11, the American Hospital Association (AHA) notes that drug costs in the United States are among the highest in the world and “continue to grow at an unsustainable pace.” Nearly 900 drugs, for instance, shot up in price the first two weeks of this year alone. One stark example: Prices for Skyrizi, a drug used to treat inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s and psoriatic arthritis, rose 5.7% in January 2025 and another 2.5% last year. PharmaExec.co. says companies have raised list prices for 872 brand-name medications, with a median increase of 4% in 2026.

What it means: Rising drug costs are not a new phenomenon, which makes price increases even more difficult to tolerate. One report from AARP notes that the average annual price of specialty drugs virtually tripled between 2006 and 2015, with those prices ballooning more than 80 times faster than inflation. The Department of Health and Human Services found that price increases for more than 1,200 prescription drugs rose 31.6% from 2021 to 2022. It’s a never-ending cycle that KFF says affects even those with health insurance and higher incomes, leading many to skip care altogether regardless of need.

What happens next: AHA urges Congress to protect the 340B program that allows hospitals to purchase outpatient drugs at discounted prices. It calls for expanding domestic manufacturing capacity while diversifying global sources, noting that the U.S. receives nearly 30% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients from China, while more than 90% of generics come from China and India. It also says hospitals could keep prices significantly lower if they weren’t often forced to obtain certain drugs through insurer-selected specialty pharmacies rather than their own systems. AHA specifically discourages “white-bagging” (where medications are shipped directly to hospitals on a one-off basis) and “brown-bagging” (shipped directly to the patient, who then must visit a provider to have them administered). “Demand for drugs is increasing dramatically,” AHA says. “These reforms will help ensure hospitals and health systems have uninterrupted access to lifesaving medications.”