Mind you, Democrats are not entirely without blame either:
While the law that obliges schools to stockpile EpiPens is good in and by itself (it saves lives), more attention should have been paid to the price updriving practices, even if that might very well have been met with right-wing critics arguing the government was messing in something it has no business in and markets are perfectly able to set prices..
Quote:That's why it's distressing to see the egregious price-gouging effort that has surrounded the product over the past few years. It has drawn the attention of presidential candidates, with Hillary Clinton calling the price explosion "outrageous." Epinephrine, the actual medicine in EpiPens, is cheap. According to public health non-profit Management Sciences for Health, epinephrine's 2014 price in some parts of the developing world was less than $1 per milliliter. One EpiPen auto-injector from Mylan contains about one-third of a milliliter. When Mylan acquired the auto injectors as part of a 2007 deal, they were priced at about $57, according to Truven Health Analytics. Today, the list price for a two-pack is $608. What happened?EpiPen cost increase shows worst parts of US government, healthcare - Business Insider
Two years later, there was another seismic event — President Barack Obama signed a law that aimed to increase the availability of epinephrine in schools. I wrote about, and cheered, the passage of that law, which encourages schools to stock emergency epinephrine in order to receive certain grants. The development of that bill was a bit more complicated than meets the eye.
Bresch is the daughter of US Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia. Mylan, along with patient groups, pushed Congress to pass the legislation — which, along with pushing schools to stock up on life-saving devices, provided the company latitude to again rise the price of the EpiPen by increasing demand for its product.
For various reasons, Mylan has had virtually no competition in the arena. One competing product was recalled last fall, and another, Adrenaclick, is cheaper but uses a more difficult injection system and is not a favorite of doctors (mine included).
White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked Wednesday whether Obama had any "regret" over signing the bill. And while he dismissed any notion of remorse, as well as the suggestion of a correlation between the Manchin family and the bill's passage, Earnest acknowledged concern over the EpiPen's price explosion. "I'm not going to second-guess the specific pricing decisions of companies. They'll obviously have to make those kinds of decisions on their own," he said. "But there have been other pharmaceutical companies that have gotten a lot of unwanted attention for their pricing practices, and it certainly degrades their efforts to build a reputation for themselves as an organization that's committed to developing and providing lifesaving medicine."
Manchin's office declined to make the senator available for an interview. But it provided a statement in which the senator expressed shared concern over the company's price increases without mentioning its CEO. "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," he said in the statement. "Today I heard Mylan's initial response, and I am sure Mylan will have a more comprehensive and formal response to those questions."
While the law that obliges schools to stockpile EpiPens is good in and by itself (it saves lives), more attention should have been paid to the price updriving practices, even if that might very well have been met with right-wing critics arguing the government was messing in something it has no business in and markets are perfectly able to set prices..