5 pages. Excerpt: Spending in the US for prescription drugs was $188.5 billion in 2004, over 4½ times more than the $40.3 billion spent in 1990. Although prescription drug spending has been a relatively small proportion of national health care spending compared to spending for hospital and physician services (10% in 2004, compared to 30% and 21%, respectively), it has been one of the fastest growing components ...