EpiPen story continues

[WackyDan]

What would fix it is campaign finance reform so politicians have a reason to care what constituents want over what drug companies want.

LOL - Really?

Who writes campaign finance reform bills? Think about that.

There is literally no shortage of analysis on why every campaign finance bill written has been written in such a way that it helps keep these congress critters in office and makes them extremely difficult to beat by any new comers.

 

[KMFJD]

Some good news, f^&k Mylan

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/01/12/cvs-epipen-mylan-adrenaclick-generic-price/

CVS is now selling a rival, generic version of Mylan’s EpiPen at about a sixth of its price, just months after the maker of the life-saving allergy treatment was eviscerated before Congress because of its soaring cost to consumers.

The drugstore chain says it will charge $109.99 for a two-pack of the authorized generic version of Adrenaclick, a lesser-known treatment compared to EpiPen, which can cost more than $600.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Some good news, f^&k Mylan

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/01/12/cvs-epipen-mylan-adrenaclick-generic-price/

CVS is now selling a rival, generic version of Mylan’s EpiPen at about a sixth of its price, just months after the maker of the life-saving allergy treatment was eviscerated before Congress because of its soaring cost to consumers.

The drugstore chain says it will charge $109.99 for a two-pack of the authorized generic version of Adrenaclick, a lesser-known treatment compared to EpiPen, which can cost more than $600.

Good. Takes the price right back where it was before the fucksticks at Mylan jacked it up.

 

[bshole]

What would fix it is campaign finance reform so politicians have a reason to care what constituents want over what drug companies want.

Would campaign finance reform feature a dunking chair for the corrupt politicians on the take?

 

[sdifox]

Surprised no idiots have come in here yet to post about how this shows the evils and failures of the "free market". This stuff is the direct result of dumb government policies, patent system and monopolies.

Single payer/medicaid/insurance/obummercare, whatever. None of that changes anything with regards to these issues. You're just shifting around who pays for what, but we're all still paying.

really? Have you looked at Epipen prices where there is government control?

You guys are spending 16.7% of your GDP on healthcare yet your life expectancy is lower than OECD average. This is based on OECD Oct 2016 report.

For comparison Canada is spending 10.1% of GDP and Life expectancy is 81.5 vs US's 78.8
http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm

 

[Sonikku]

Surprised no idiots have come in here yet to post about how this shows the evils and failures of the "free market". This stuff is the direct result of dumb government policies, patent system and monopolies.

Single payer/medicaid/insurance/obummercare, whatever. None of that changes anything with regards to these issues. You're just shifting around who pays for what, but we're all still paying.

A free market would probably be better as a free market could involve price negotiation. When you tell medicare that they basically have to accept whatever price a seller wants to sell something for it's not exactly free market. What we have is a system that is socialized only so far as it protects big business while being privatized only in the ways it works against the regular citizen.

 

[MongGrel]

Things are always a bit grey in many areas.

But everyone wants to think it is cut and dried.

Bottom line is, what ever makes money for the shareholders, and has been in government for a very long time.

 

[brycejones]

really? Have you looked at Epipen prices where there is government control?

You guys are spending 16.7% of your GDP on healthcare yet your life expectancy is lower than OECD average. This is based on OECD Oct 2016 report.

For comparison Canada is spending 10.1% of GDP and Life expectancy is 81.5 vs US's 78.8
http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm

But medical care in Canada sucks, all the right wing blogs have said so.

 

[Victorian Gray]

But medical care in Canada sucks, all the right wing blogs have said so.

It's true. When I was diagnosed with cancer the treatment was to kick me out of the communal igloo and dump me on a passing iceberg.

 

[sdifox]

It's true. When I was diagnosed with cancer the treatment was to kick me out of the communal igloo and dump me on a passing iceberg.

You are lucky. Because of global warming, there is less ice for polar bears to get to you.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Yeah, they're being greedy. And it serves a larger purpose because people hoard resources in emergencies. I'd rather someone be greedy and charge $500 for gasoline rather than he not be greedy and a hospital full of people die because supplies of fuel for their generators ran out. Yeah I know that you think it's crazy talk that I'd rather someone make some money than hundreds die.

lol, I hope you realize an EpiPen is basically just a little bit of plastic and an easily synthesized chemical. If it wasn't for greedy corporations (and more importantly the patent offices that enable them) you could buy EpiPens like Advil. It's scarce only because of artificial manipulation of the market.

 

[tynopik]

lol, I hope you realize an EpiPen is basically just a little bit of plastic and an easily synthesized chemical. If it wasn't for greedy corporations (and more importantly the patent offices that enable them) you could buy EpiPens like Advil. It's scarce only because of artificial manipulation of the market.

if it was so easy to make an epipen competitor, there would be more of them

the history of epipen competitors is littered with recalls and failures to receive FDA approval

it had nothing to do with 'artificial manipulation of the market' and everything to do with their competitors failing all over themselves

 

[HamburgerBoy]

if it was so easy to make an epipen competitor, there would be more of them

the history of epipen competitors is littered with recalls and failures to receive FDA approval

it had nothing to do with 'artificial manipulation of the market' and everything to do with their competitors failing all over themselves

OK, "more importantly the patent offices and FDA that enable them".

 

[tynopik]

so the fda shouldn't be testing medical products for safety and effectiveness?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

If a competitor is denied because their product is just a hair inferior, all the while allowing price gouging to the point that many people use expired EpiPens which technically would violate FDA recommendations, then it's clear that the FDA doesn't have the citizens best interests at heart. Plus, this is a distraction anyways; the original EpiPens go back to the 80s, and it's patent tomfoolery that allows them to create trivial modifications and keep protections going long past an ordinary term.

 

[mikeymikec]

It's true. When I was diagnosed with cancer the treatment was to kick me out of the communal igloo and dump me on a passing iceberg.

But you got better thanks to the lack of vaccines available in Canada?

Yeah, they're being greedy. And it serves a larger purpose because people hoard resources in emergencies. I'd rather someone be greedy and charge $500 for gasoline rather than he not be greedy and a hospital full of people die because supplies of fuel for their generators ran out. Yeah I know that you think it's crazy talk that I'd rather someone make some money than hundreds die.

I love the mental gymnastics involved to arrive at this conclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_HRetnxpSI

 

[Darwin333]

Then you should put your own capital in play and develop/sell your own delivery system to provide that $2 of medicine and only accept the "correct" amount of profit for it. Evidently since you think $608 is way too high for "moral reasons" you'll be charging a lot less. And donating all your profits to charity or some shit.

We'll wait right here for you to start writing checks to fund this project on behalf of bettering your fellow man and preventing such callous price gouging.

Umm, you realize that the "technology", the autoinjector, that their patent is based on was actually commissioned by the US and UK government in the 1950's right? The U.S. government was a principal buyer of injector pens and funded a considerable amount of the technical improvements to it. They didn't really use their own capital to develop shit, they were granted a patent that never should have been granted and then they made a minor tweak to it so they could get another patent, again that never should have been granted.

A few more things on the company you are defending. The have been illegally ripping off the very same government that funded the development of their product that they were then wrongfully granted a patent so they could gouge the fuck out of everyone to the tune of half a billion dollars. Even worse is the absurdly ironic reality is stranger than fiction way that they were ripping off Medicare and Medicaid. They have been misclassifying Epipens as generic drugs rather than a brand name drug which drastically reduces what they have to reimburse the government. What is the penalty for ripping off the government for half a billion dollars you ask, why they just have to pay it back and that is it, they don't even have to admit any wrongdoing... Remind me again, what's the penalty for ripping off the government by intentionally and blatantly cheating on your taxes and cheating the government for thousands of dollars? Oh yeah, they can and will throw your ass in jail and fine the shit out of you.

The very same government who had recently passed a law that put a substantial amount of federal taxpayer dollars into their pockets by starting a program of having schools starting to stock EpiPens versus only using ones that are brought in by students. Since there were no competitors to the product the bill should have been called "Mylan funding package" instead of "School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act".

But wait, it doesn't stop there. The CEO of Mylan, who just happens to be the daughter of a sitting senator, blatantly perjured herself in front of Congress under oath. What is the penalty for this you ask, absolutely nothing. What's the penalty for your average joe intentionally and blatantly committing perjury in a court of law, oh yeah they throw your ass in jail.

But wait, there is even more! Now it seems that Mylan, who is currently charging $600 for a two-pack of Epipens is releasing its own generic version, which they admit has ZERO difference in either drug or technology to their brand name version, and selling it for $300 or half the price they are now.

You just can't make this shit up...

 

[sandorski]

On top of all this, they just did a massive recall.

 

[Darwin333]

On top of all this, they just did a massive recall.

Yup, they are selling a product for $600 that they themselves admit that they can sell profitably for half that because they are about to do it later this year and they still can't get it right...

 

[WHAMPOM]

Surprised no idiots have come in here yet to post about how this shows the evils and failures of the "free market". This stuff is the direct result of dumb government policies, patent system and monopolies.

Single payer/medicaid/insurance/obummercare, whatever. None of that changes anything with regards to these issues. You're just shifting around who pays for what, but we're all still paying.

That is just because you have "free market "confused" with "monopoly, collusion and price fixing ".

 

[1prophet]

Yeah, they're being greedy. And it serves a larger purpose because people hoard resources in emergencies. I'd rather someone be greedy and charge $500 for gasoline rather than he not be greedy and a hospital full of people die because supplies of fuel for their generators ran out. Yeah I know that you think it's crazy talk that I'd rather someone make some money than hundreds die.

What prevents the government from using eminent domain under emergency conditions paying the gasoline provider fair market value and distributing the gasoline to high priority customers first like hospitals "so people don't die" and then to everyone else until the emergency is over and then things can go back to the way they were before the emergency.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

@PokerGuy: go look up "regulatory capture" and don't come back until you understand good and well what it means.

 

[WHAMPOM]

If we go by the "rules" of Capitalism, demand, supply and manufacture, epi pens should have been going down in price. Why such a simple mechanism as an epi pen should go for more then $50.00 is just Robber Baron Practice.

 

[shortylickens]

If we go by the "rules" of Capitalism, demand, supply and manufacture, epi pens should have been going down in price. Why such a simple mechanism as an epi pen should go for more then $50.00 is just Robber Baron Practice.

There is no Free Market for medicine in the United States. The medical practice, including both services and products, has a government backed monopoly. Its so deeply entrenched NO president has ever dared touch it. So they blame the other side and find different scapegoats and ridiculous "solutions" to the problem while collecting all the votes they can from ignorant constituents.

 

[Meghan54]

Mylan hit with racketeering suit over big price hikes of EpiPen

Big drugmaker Mylan (MYL) was slapped Monday with a class-action racketeering lawsuit that claims the company engaged in an illegal scheme to dramatically increase the list price of its EpiPen anti-allergy device over the past decade.

The suit alleges that the "skyrocketing" list price of EpiPen for consumers was the result of Mylan's payments of rebates to pharmacy benefit managers — including CVS Caremark (CVS), Express Scripts (ESRX) and Optum Rx — which handle prescription drug benefit programs for insurance plans.

The suit says Mylan only disclosed that its price increases for EpiPen were due to the rebate payments to the PBMs last summer, after outrage exploded over the fact the a two-pack of the auto-injector devices were selling for more than $600.

A decade earlier, it cost consumers paying list price about $90 for EpiPen, which is used to treat a potentially fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis. Since then Mylan had increased the list price of the device 17 times, the suit said.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, noted that when EpiPen prices were increasing most dramatically, some other companies tried to introduce competing devices.

But those companies but never succeeded in displacing the market dominance of EpiPen because they did not pay the same level of rebates that Mylan was paying the pharmacy benefit managers, the suit said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...g-price-hikes-of-epipen/ar-BBzhYpX?li=BBnb7Kz