United States Pharmaceutical Expenditures, GDP Per Capita, and the Majority Party

United States: Pharmaceutical Expenditures and the Controlling Party Jiraporn Rungvivatjarus Mentor: Amihai Glazer In 2007, the United States spent approximately 12% of its total health expenditure on pharmaceuticals; although this number has fluctuated in the short run, it has increased in the long run. I investigated the political aspect of this matter by studying the relationship between the political party in power and the U.S pharmaceutical expenditures from 1996–2007 in order to better understand the factors that cause this fluctuation and the increase in pharmaceutical expenditures. My approach was to gather data on total pharmaceutical expenditures, total health expenditures, and GDP per capita; I also gathered information about the political parties that controlled the Presidency, Senate, and the House of Representatives. After all the data was entered into an Excel spreadsheet, I completed statistical analysis of the data to examine the relationship between the mean value of pharmaceutical expenditures and other independent variables. With these results, I discovered that total pharmaceutical expenditure per capita is lower when the president is a Democrat and when the total health expenditure in percentage of GDP is high; on the other hand, total pharmaceutical expenditure is higher when GDP per capita is high and when the total health expenditure per capita is high. Furthermore, total pharmaceutical expenditure in percentage of total health expenditure is lower when Democrats control the House of Representatives, when GDP per capita is high, and when the total health expenditure in percentage of GDP is high; on the other hand, it is higher when Democrats control the Senate and when the total health expenditure per capita is high. In conclusion, there appears to be a relationship between the controlling party and pharmaceutical expenditures in the United States.