With a total of 5-6 pages

Evaluate theoretical healthcare principles relative to your research problem.

The research should includes the following elements:

Introduction (½ page)

General problem statement (1 page)

The general problem is the increased cost of prescription drugs for the elderly population in United States (Ayyagari, 2016).

Specific problem statement (1 page)

The specific problem is the increased cost of prescription drugs for the elderly population in Maine (Cutler et al. 2019).

Purpose statement (1 page)

The purpose of the research is to reduce the cost of prescription drugs among the elderly population in Maine (Kaestner, Schiman, & Alexander, 2019). This is crucial to the research because the population segment above 65 years is rapidly aging. Furthermore, the aging is directly related to chronic or terminal illness that requires prescription drugs (Fukushima, Mizuoka, Yamamoto, & Iizuka, 2016). The elderly in the area are low income earners and therefore the price of the drugs should be reduced (Shih et al. 2017).

Research questions (¼ page)

QR1. Why the cost of prescription drugs in Maine is high compared to other states?

QR2. How does the cost of drugs affect the health of elderly population?

Reference list (1 page)

Ayyagari, P. (2016). Prescription drug coverage and chronic pain. International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 16(2), 189-200.

Cutler, D. M., Ghosh, K., Messer, K. L., Raghunathan, T. E., Stewart, S. T., & Rosen, A. B. (2019). Explaining the slowdown in medical spending growth among the elderly, 1999–2012. Health Affairs, 38(2), 222-229.

Fukushima, K., Mizuoka, S., Yamamoto, S., & Iizuka, T. (2016). Patient cost sharing and medical expenditures for the elderly. Journal of Health Economics, 45, 115-130.

Kaestner, R., Schiman, C., & Alexander, G. C. (2019). Effects of prescription drug insurance on hospitalization and mortality: evidence from Medicare Part D. Journal of Risk and Insurance, 86(3), 595-628.

Shih, Y. C. T., Xu, Y., Liu, L., & Smieliauskas, F. (2017). Rising prices of targeted oral anticancer medications and associated financial burden on Medicare beneficiaries. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 35(22), 2482.