U.S. Congress members demand investigation of $100 price hike of lifesaving EpiPens
84 replies, posted
[QUOTE=space1;50941386]Do you really think global corporations will lower the costs of their medications from guaranteed business?
Who will burden the tax hardest, the lower or the upper classes?[/QUOTE]
Yes, as we have seen in literally every other country on the planet. The US has the highest healthcare costs in the world, both to the taxpayer [I]and[/I] to the consumer, and that's because of the rampant inflation of medical costs as a result of health insurance, and a lack of governmental authority to negotiate better prices. Insult to injury, the US is barely even in the top 15 countries for the actual [I]quality[/I] of that healthcare. Our healthcare system is several orders of magnitude more expensive, and still actually of [B]lower[/B] quality when compared to the rest of the developed world.
It's pretty clear that our system is borked. Universal healthcare is objectively better, and that's a quantifiable fact backed by obscene amounts of data.
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[QUOTE=ilikecorn;50942096]Sounds like their problem, not ours. We've been so far up everyone's asses doing the WORLD POLICE gig, that us actually taking care of ourselves has been put on the back burner. It's time to start looking into our own infrastructure, education, and healthcare system.[/QUOTE]
You do know you don't have to withdraw from interacting with the world and having a presence to do that, right? Like, the whole point of government is to manage and distribute funding and projects.
The idea to try an solve domestic issues isn't a mutually exclusive one with maintaining a military presence in areas deemed strategically useful. It's just a matter of downsizing where possible and managing funding better/ actually imposing regulation in the price gouging suppliers.
[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;50940748]I don't think that's as easy or nearly as beneficial as you think it is.[/QUOTE]
I love when people makes posts like this and then don't elaborate at all.
[editline]24th August 2016[/editline]
Also TBH if your product is deemed necessary for public health then your patent should be voided (Of course you'd receive some form of compensation so that you'd still have incentive to keep researching new drugs). Its really silly that the current system offers incentive to hike up prices so much that its a detriment to public health
An epipen is not necessary for public health. Its just a delivery system for epinephrine. There are alternatives.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;50943128]I love when people makes posts like this and then don't elaborate at all.
[editline]24th August 2016[/editline]
Also TBH if your product is deemed necessary for public health then your patent should be voided (Of course you'd receive some form of compensation so that you'd still have incentive to keep researching new drugs). Its really silly that the current system offers incentive to hike up prices so much that its a detriment to public health[/QUOTE]
Every medication is "necessary" in some situation or another.
[QUOTE=Code3Response;50943170]An epipen is not necessary for public health. Its just a delivery system for epinephrine. There are alternatives.[/QUOTE]
I realize that but the fact is that most people are trained in the usage of epipens. Teaching people how to use a syringe, while relatively simple, would still be massively costly to implement on a nationwide scale.
Its also a lot easier to panic and fuck up using a syringe then to use an epipen.
[QUOTE=AlienCreature;50937859]Or we could just get rid of the silly patents system and let competitors build whatever the hell they want. That would solve the problem.[/QUOTE]
Think about what this would do to the average inventor or engineer trying to make his living selling designs to be used. Without patents, the next bill gates would sell one of his new thing to every company interested in a potential market, and not a single one more. The system around it needs reform, but without it, you'd have soviet level motivation for the aspiring buisnessman/entrapanour.
The self employment rate is down to single digit numbers, this would kill it once and for all, and give despots like Edison an absolute power over new technology.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50943171]Every medication is "necessary" in some situation or another.[/QUOTE]
Well thats pretty clearly obvious? Obviously every medication has a purpose or it really wouldn't be a medication. But things like insulin or epipens are clearly more important to maintaining a functional healthcare system then say some rare cancer drug.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;50943196]Well thats pretty clearly obvious? Obviously every medication has a purpose or it really wouldn't be a medication. But things like insulin or epipens are clearly more important to maintaining a functional healthcare system then say some rare cancer drug.[/QUOTE]
I'm just pointing out how uselessly vague your comment about voiding patents for medically necessary medications is. That could easily be interpreted in a way that would void every medical patent, ever.
A scathing article of the Mylan chief executive, Heather Bresch, responsible for the price hikes:
[url]http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-epipen-ceo-bresch-salary-20160824-story.html[/url]
Some noteworthy snippets:
[quote]Fortune, in a tough profile, once described her career as being full of "ethically messy mishaps and public relations gaffes." At least two involve her own father, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.[/quote]
[quote]The most scandalous incident occurred in 2008 shortly after she was named the company's chief executive and involved the master's degree in business administration from West Virginia University that was listed on her resume. It turns out she never got it. An investigation by the school, prompted by a newspaper report, found that some administrators had added courses and grades to her transcript to make it look as if she had completed the required coursework.
The incident made headlines across the state because her father was governor at the time and the school's president, Mike Garrison, was a longtime family friend and former business associate.[/quote]
[quote]Then there's the matter of Bresch's salary and other perks, which are unusually high, even in this era of crazy compensation for company executives.
"EpiPen prices aren't the only thing to jump at Mylan," NBC News reported. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Bresch's total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068 from 2007 to 2015. That's a striking 671 percent increase. That period coincides with the time when Mylan acquired the rights to EpiPens and steadily hiked the average wholesale price from about $55 to $320.[/quote]
I'm surprised the university even investigated anything if the president was a family friend.
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