--- title: Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014 | TIME description: Americans spent almost $374 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, a 13 percent increase from the year before. canonical: https://time.com/video/wMvrLgG6/ og:title: Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014 og:description: Americans spent almost $374 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, a 13 percent increase from the year before. og:url: https://time.com/video/wMvrLgG6/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wMvrLgG6/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014 twitter:description: Americans spent almost $374 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, a 13 percent increase from the year before. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wMvrLgG6/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014 > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014 [Watch (HLS stream): Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wMvrLgG6.m3u8) (1:57)  _Published 2015-04-14. Americans spent almost $374 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, a 13 percent increase from the year before._ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:09 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Herbal Supplements May Be Dangerous When You Take Some Prescription Drugs](/video/bI9nmRD3/) ### Herbal Supplements May Be Dangerous When You Take Some Prescription Drugs [UnitedHealth Just Got Sued for Overcharging on Prescription Drugs](/video/VU84pLag/) ### UnitedHealth Just Got Sued for Overcharging on Prescription Drugs [FedEx Charged In Prescription Drug Shipping Investigation](/video/QyM1DBC1/) ### FedEx Charged In Prescription Drug Shipping Investigation --- ## Transcript Spending on medicine reached a new high in the U. S. in 2014 as Americans spent nearly $ 374 billion on prescription drugs. That's according to a new report released by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics Tuesday which found 2014 spending rose 13 % compared with the year before. The report also included record numbers of prescriptions filled in the U. S. in 2014. Some $ 4. 3 billion. According to the Associated Press some of those were inexpensive generic pills going to patients now insured through Medicaid in states that expanded eligibility for the government health program for the poor and disabled. Signed into law into 2010, 2014 was the first year year the Affordable Care Act required Americans to either buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Penalty making it so many more were covered compared with previous years. About 15. 7 million Americans gained health insurance last year resulting in a 5. 1 % decrease in the U. S. 's uninsured rate. The New York Times say states that expanded Medicare under that law saw a 25. 4 % rise in. Prescriptions from 2013, whereas there was only a 2. 8 % increase in states that didn't expand the program. But other outlets stress the increase in healthcare coverage didn't contribute much to this new level of spending. Instead, much of it came from new inexpensive treatments. The Los Angeles Times focused on IMS. Health's discovery that more than $ 11 billion in spending went toward the new hepatitis c drug Sovaldi, which costs more than $ 80, 000 for a 12 week treatment. Time reports the number of patients seeking treatment for hepatitis c in 2014 jumped to 161, 000 from just 17, 000 in 2014. Some 42 new drugs were introduced in 2014. The most. Since 2011. 18 of those were so- called orphan drugs, developed for rare diseases. Quoted by the Los Angeles Times, the director of research development for IMS Health said he and his colleagues believe 2014 was a bit of a one- off and don't expect people will spend as much on medicine in the coming years. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Prescription Drug Sales Surged In 2014","description":"Americans spent almost $374 billion on prescription drugs in 2014, a 13 percent increase from the year before.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wMvrLgG6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-04-14T17:24:34.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wMvrLgG6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/wMvrLgG6/","duration":"PT1M57S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/wMvrLgG6/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```