![EpiPen’s Price Gouging CEO Is Democrat Senator Joe Manchin’s Daughter [VIDEOS]](https://victorygirlsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/epipen.jpg)
Heather Bresch, the daughter of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), has a big problem. Her company Mylan NV, her ‘baby’ as she’s called it, is in the midst of a firestorm. One that in many ways is of her own making.
What does Mylan NV make? EpiPens.
Yes, those EpiPens. How many people do our fellow bloggers and readers know who must carry at least one or have multiple EpiPens available 24/7 due to the variety of life threatening allergies that person faces? Too many. They carry one on their person, have one in their car, one in their bathrooms, kitchen, at their school… For many an EpiPen is an absolute medical necessity. Which, in consumer terms, means the market is booming for Mylan NV. In fact, they are a $23.7 billion company with nearly $10 million in sales.
So why has the company hiked the price of a single EpiPen by 400% over the last nine years?
Mylan has increased the price of its EpiPen from about $57 a shot when it took over sales of the product in 2007 to more than $600 for two auto-injectors. But the company’s EpiPen is a more mainstream drug used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions from bee stings, food allergies or other triggers, which could give the issue a larger constituency.
In fact, Mylan NV has upped the price by 15% every other quarter since 2013. For those who’ve lost their insurance many times due to companies such as United, Aetna, or Blue Cross exiting the over-regulated Obamacare markets, the continued price hikes are adding to the financial and medical stress they face. Even worse, the execs of Mylan NV don’t seem to care as evidenced by the fabulous salaries they are getting.
Yes you heard correctly. Lets put it another way, Heather Bresch’s salary in 2007 was just over $2 million. Now its nearly $18 million. That’s a 671% increase in 9 years. That’s definitely one explanation for the price gouging! Here’s another from Mylan NV.
With the current changes in the healthcare insurance landscape, an increasing number of people and families have enrolled in high deductible health plans, and deductible amounts continue to rise. This current and ongoing shift has presented new challenges for consumers, and now they are bearing more of the cost. This new change to the industry is not an easy challenge to address, but we recognize the need and are committed to working with customers and payors to find solutions to meet the needs of the patients and families we serve.
Oh I get it. Its the insurance companies that are making Mylan NV hike their prices on EpiPens and at least 24 of their other products. Not only that, but its the consumers fault for getting themselves hung up in Obamacare and now having to pay super high deductibles. Wow. Just. Wow.
But that’s ok. Heather gets to enjoy all sorts of perks with her $18 million plus salary. Perks such as Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit.
Congress, at the moment, is planning to call Heather on the carpet for the price gouging and exorbitant salaries. Will they do so? Or will they give her a pass because her father is a powerful Democrat Senator? Will Congress address the fact that the drug companies, the FDA, and Congress themselves are causes of this?
EpiPen has a U.S. patent giving it a monopoly until 2025 = we'll charge whatever we want because we know you need to have it.
— Stephen Eckhardt (@seckhardt) August 24, 2016
Sadly for those who need an EpiPen, I fear Congress will decide once again that the permissive government regulations combined with Big Pharma is just too big to change, and Heather will continue merrily on her way racking up the big bucks.
They have a patent, they CAN rightly (as a moral matter) charge whatever they choose. No proponent of liberty would suggest otherwise.
Now, on the flip side, Rules For Radicals would suggest tearing into them like wolves on a bacon wrapped lamb, doing everything possible to take down Senator Joe by association, as well as Obamacare. Make them live up to their own rules….
I am torn…
They certainly can charge whatever they choose. Any company can do so in order to make a profit of some sort.
However, the increase in pricing, particularly over the last 3 years combined with the exorbitant salary increases of the executives doesn’t and shouldn’t play well in the market. Especially since that company is worth $23 billion.
Not only that, but the massive increase in prices for something that is quite frankly a must have or someone dies is, IMO, morally wrong.
Interesting point about turning R for R against their own kind…
GWB says: Its the insurance companies that are making Mylan NV hike their prices on EpiPens and at least 24 of their other products. Not only that, but its the consumers fault for getting themselves hung up in Obamacare and now having to pay super high deductibles.
Two important bits of pushback here….
First, insurance companies have skewed the pricing visible to consumers for years. Not necessarily because of any malice, but because gov’t regulation incentivizes it. The incentive – if you want to get reimbursed your actual costs – is to jack prices way up, then discount them heavily under the insurance plans. It’s crazy, but it’s how our system has been designed by the technocrats.
Second, a lot of those high-deductible plans have nothing directly to do with 0bamaCare. I had a high-deductible with my last company. And the decision was more based on a cost/benefit analysis as the premiums went way up than anything else.
What I found nice was that *we* paid for our healthcare. We got a HSA and put a little money into it each paycheck (and my employer kicked in, too!). It meant we shopped around a little, and made actual choices as to whether we really needed that treatment or test (fortunately, we’re all still in mostly decent health). Prices actually weren’t that awful (because the insurance company negotiated decent prices) and we paid for them out of our HSA.
(And, most “insurance” plans are not really insurance, they’re more “managed care” plans where you need to use the services to get anything out of the money you’re pitching into that maw that is insurance company premiums.)
I concur on “morally wrong”. But the real issue is why they still have a patent on something that has been around for YEARS. EpiPens have existed for decades. Seems like a company would do well to drag out their old versions, update them based on their own research, then sell them at an undercutting price.
GWB says: permissive government regulations
I agree that it hurts, but I *WANT* “permissive government regulations”. I want them to be MORE permissive. Maybe we can get some real solutions, then.
I agree on your points – definitely food for thought.
I still think Mylan’s attempt to infer that its all insurance and consumers fault that the prices had to go up was absolutely the wrong thing to do. 😉
GWB says: Yes, better to say it’s the fault of health industry regulation – incentives and disincentives.
J walter says: Morality and feelings have no place in capitalism. Buy Mylan stock.
Kim Quade says: “Morality and feelings have no place in capitalism.”
Too bad the morality and feelings of the abolitionists brought down slavery, then. That slave trade was quite the profitable gig.
Heather says: this is why health insurance cost so much and are pulling out of obamacare. The bulk of the cost gets paid by insurance. So the pass it on in higher premiums.
GWB says: Here’s another issue helping to drive up the price: gov’t regulation won’t let competitors get going. It’s not the drug, it’s the injector. Which is weird, since I’ve had auto-injectors in my hands as long as 34 years ago. Of course, those were only for use in extreme urgency, like near-immediate death. Oh… wait…………
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