Prescription medicine is often unattainable for millions of Americans simply due to the price of these drugs.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey illustrates the difficulties in accessing medicine that exist for a significant proportion of Americans.  In the past year, 10.1% of non-Hispanic white adults reported that drug costs prevented them from buying necessary medications.  That percentage jumps to 13.2% for Hispanics and rises further to 14.7% of non-Hispanic blacks.  Interestingly, there are significant variations between Hispanic sub-populations: while 16.4% of Puerto Rican adults could not afford prescription drugs in the past year, a comparatively low percentage of Cuban adults (10.8%) were unable to buy necessary drugs.