Many Lexington County residents can’t afford their medications.

About 50% of the sick in the US have this trouble, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

When patients stop filling and taking their prescriptions because of high out-of-pocket costs, the consequences can be grave, said Tomas Philipson, former White House Council of Economic Advisers chair and a University of Chicago professor.

Research found that lack of medications causes about 125,000 deaths a year.

The Biden administration will soon have a chance to slash out-of-pocket drug costs to boost public health.

How? By using the “Notice of Benefits and Payment Parameters,” a massive rule that sets the standards for many health insurance plans, Professor Philipson said.

The rule now allows in surers to shift costs to America’s most vulnerable patients through the use of socalled “accumulator adjustment programs.”

To help you with medicines, drug makers routinely provide “co-pay assistance coupons.”

The coupons work like coupons at grocery stores to reduce what you have to pay.

Co-pay coupons counted towards your out-of-pocket maximums.

These are the most insurance plans can require you to pay in a year before they have to cover the rest.

But accumulator adjustment programs don’t count these coupons towards your out-of-pocket maximum.

As a result, full insurance coverage never kicks in and your out-of-pocket costs remain high throughout the year.

This essentially amounts to you paying twice – through coupons and then again on your own.

Drug makers claim these programs prevent them from urging you to take brand-name drugs instead of cheaper generics.

Yet data shows that less than half of 1% of prescriptions filled through insurance plans involve brandname drugs paid for with coupons, even when generics are available.

The Department of Health and Human Services permits insurers to charge you twice with accumulator adjustments.

The Biden administration would be wise to ban these, Philipson said.