Tag: Thieves

The EpiPen price gougers are busy explaining that it’s all the fault of the insurance industry. I expect that if you asked the insurance industry, it would be quick to offer the explanation that it’s actually all the fault of the pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile little Susie just accidentally ingested some peanut, and will she get the injection in time? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch struggled Thursday to justify the repeated big price hikes of the company’s lifesaving EpiPen devices as criticism continued that Mylan is gouging consumers with a retail cost of more than $600.

“No one’s more frustrated than me,” Bresch told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday when she was pressed on the question of why Mylan needed to have such a high price for EpiPens, and why she just didn’t cut their price.

Ah that’s hilarious, but no – the parents of children with allergies who can’t afford $600 for an EpiPen two-pack are more frustrated than the highly paid CEO of Mylan. (She raised her own salary after she got the job. Raised it right up, she did.)

Bresch argued that the problem of drug prices isn’t with Mylan or even the pharmaceutical industry, but instead with a health-care system that often requires consumers to pay not just insurance premiums also out-of-pocket for prescription medications, sometimes to the full retail price.

So Mylan’s repeated steep price hikes have had nothing to do with it. How would that work, exactly?

The leading health insurance lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, scoffed at Mylan’s move.

“We’ve seen this time and time again. Rather than actually taking steps to address the real problem of soaring drug prices, pharma companies try and cover their price hikes through patient assistance programs and co-pay support,” said Clare Krusing, spokeswoman for AHIP.

“None of which will make a drug more affordable for the people who need it most. Exorbitant price increases on prescription drugs are leading to higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs for patients, and pharma companies continue to deny that reality,” Krusing said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, blasted Mylan on Thursday.

“Offering a meager discount only after widespread bipartisan criticism is exactly the same tactic used by drug companies across the industry to distract from their exorbitant price increases, as our investigation has shown repeatedly,” Cummings said. “Nobody is buying this PR move anymore. Mylan should not offer after-the-fact discounts only for a select few — it should reverse its massive price increases across the board immediately.”

On “Squawk Box,” Bresch said that as a mother she wants to make sure no one is falling through the cracks.

The cracks her company opened up by repeatedly hiking the price. Don’t give us that “as a mother” shit.

The EpiPen sold for $100 in 2008. In the eight years since, the price has more than quintupled. About 43 million people are at risk from anaphylaxis, or the severe, life-threatening allergic reaction that EpiPen’s injection of epinephrine is designed to counteract.

“This outrageous increase in the price of EpiPens is occurring at the same time that Mylan … is exploiting a monopoly market advantage that has fallen into its lap,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said last weekend.

They do it because they can.

For the backstory on the EpiPen price-gouging – Tom Cahill at US Uncut:

The EpiPen is a life-saving device commonly used by those with food allergies susceptible to anaphylaxis. Should someone accidentally ingest food that prompts a potentially fatal allergic reaction, like peanuts or shellfish, the EpiPen provides an emergency dose of epinephrine into the person’s bloodstream, immediately alleviating anaphylactic shock. Sheldon Kaplan, who invented the EpiPen, designed it on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense to provide an easily deliverable antidote to nerve gas. The company he was working for eventually released it for public use several years later.

However, in 2007, Mylan Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to the EpiPen and immediately started raising the price. After Heather Bresch, its former top lobbyist, successfully pushed for legislation in Congress that required all public schools to carry EpiPens for children with food allergies, its price hikes became more frequent and more severe, raising by at least 10 percent every other quarter from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the second quarter of 2016.

Fun fact about that? The lobbyist who had such success getting legislation in Congress that required all public schools to carry EpiPens for children with food allergies…is the daughter of a senator. She became CEO of Mylan and raised her own salary by 671 percent.

I want to puke.

Here’s a good thing to sign: a petition to Mylan Pharmaceuticals telling it to undo its massive price hike on EpiPens.

To: Heather Bresch, CEO, Mylan Pharmaceuticals
From: Your Name Here

The EpiPen contains only $1 worth of medicine, but you’re charging hundreds of times that amount. How many poor children will die because their parents can’t afford $600 EpiPens? Drop the price of this lifesaving medicine NOW!