The $400 EpiPen

Washington is on it!

 

It's odd that technology has been able to replace so many jobs -- you're on the clock truck drivers -- but there isn't a program to replace CEOs.

I guess computers find it hard to be that heartless.

 

LOL.

"I am aware of the questions my colleagues and many parents are asking, and frankly, I share their concerns about the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said today in a statement. “Today I heard Mylan's initial response, and I am sure Mylan will have a more comprehensive and formal response to those questions.

 

I heard the CEO on the news trying to explain away the price on the broken healthcare system, yada, yada.

Yeah, you price gouging anal fissures are the reason it's broken.

You bought someone else's work, marketed the hell out of it and jacked up the price.

Can't see where Obamacare or whatever is forcing your hand.

 

Why is that necessarily wrong?

 

It's not necessarily wrong for things like, say, mobile phones. Or cars. Or high-definition televisions. (That's pretty much The Bill Gates Story, for instance.)

It's wrong for health care.

And no, saying "health care should not be subject to the whims and avarice of the free market" is not the same thing as saying "health care should be free."

 

Also, kind of off the subject but whatever, paragraphs like this in news stories drive me batshit. From The New York Times story today:

Ms. Bresch has also weathered her share of controversy, like when it was discovered that West Virginia University awarded her a business degree 10 years after she had attended the school, even though she had completed only about half of the coursework. A report by the university later concluded that officials wrongly awarded her the degree because she was the daughter of the then-governor Joe Manchin, now a Democratic senator representing West Virginia. Mr. Manchin and Ms. Bresch have said they did nothing wrong.

And that's the last that's said about that.

Well, SOMEBODY did something wrong. Does the fact that Manchin and Bresch "say they did nothing wrong" somehow make it so? Just frustrating to me as a reader. Carry on.

 

Why does the Epi pen last only a year? How does it become too old to use? Is it organic and thus degrades? If so, why is it not made shelf stable? Is it the manufacturer saying it's too old, or is it the FDA saying it?

 

You can't tweak your way into fixing our system to prevent shit like this from happening.

The whole thing has to be blown up. And I'm fine with that.

 

The pen is fine ... the stuff the pen shoots in you is what goes bad. That -- the ability to keep the stuff usable AND handy AND easy to administer properly -- is why the pen was such a valuable development.

 

Obviously I know the pen itself doesn't go bad, but why does the epinephrine go bad?

 

The reason Europe didn't experience these price increases is that the government caps the price ... could be a lesson in there.