I was aware, in an up close and personal kind of way, that environmental concerns drove the exit of CFC-propelled Albuterol inhalers from the market. I remember my doctor raising the issue with me and discussing training me on a new kind of inhaler. I went home and looked it up and found something like this. I can't say I gave it too much thought. But now that I've read this and have to wonder just what that game was about.
I have to say I love the conclusion: large cost increases in out of pocket spending for commercially insured, relatively small drop in utilization for commercially insured, and insufficient data to track the end result for the uninsured. We can speculate, though.
Missouri State of Mind 
The real problem with higher drug costs comes from having the U.S. being almost the only country that doesn’t negotiate drug costs from providers. Europe, Canada and many others do negotiate. This leaves the U.S. as the major target for drug companies to “recover” R&D costs.
Certainly the drug companies took advantage of the new delivery device. I use Advair and CombiVent and definitely noticed the difference. I do really like to breathe, so I pay up.
However, the ozone hole is now shrinking, thanks to the ban on CFC usage. Of course, most of that came from stringent requirements on air conditioner techs to capture the current charge and then recharge the system with non-CFC coolant.
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