Public hospitals and doctors depend on profits from prescription drugs to sustain operations and supplement incomes, after the state gutted health funding in the 1980s. A 2006 move to cap markups at 15 percent to curb skyrocketing medical costs had the opposite effect: doctors covered shortfalls by prescribing ever more, and more expensive, drugs. Curbing this drug dependency has been a priority since 2009. Plans were announced in early 2017 to abolish markups at public hospitals by year’s end.