A story on Mental Floss caught my attention
the other day when they talked about the fact
that the price of Epipens ... Pens that are
used for people with allergies to inject epinephrine
very quickly and easily ... The price of those
has risen by 450% in less than a decade. Now
because of this, you buy a pack of two pens,
it's roughly $600. Because of that, EMTs in
cities all over this country are having to
forego purchasing these. When they respond
to a medical emergency, they do not have these
Epipens to inject into people who are having
allergic reactions, who's throats are closing
up. Instead they have to rely on the old method
of a bottle of epinephrine and a syringe,
hope they get the dosage right, and try to
find a vein. Now, this again is because of
the cost.
I have two kids with peanut allergies, so
twice a year, I have to buy two sets of Epipens
at $1,200 apiece. I have insurance. I have
pretty decent insurance, and I still have
to pay this much money for a life saving drug
that I have to have on hand at all times.
I'm not unique here. Millions of people all
over this country rely on this medication.
That is why we have to reign in the pharmaceutical
industry.
This is a uniquely American problem, as are
so many other things that are happening right
now. It is uniquely American, because the
pharmaceutical industry have so much power
over politicians that they have actually negotiated
with the government to the point that the
government can't negotiate prices. That is
written into the Affordable Care Act, Obama
Care. The thing that a lot of liberals were
like wow, this is a great piece of legislation.
No, it's not. It's a massive giveaway to the
pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
We need to do what other countries do. What
Canada does, what the United Kingdom does,
what most of Europe does. That is negotiate
directly with pharmaceutical companies to
lower prices of life saving medication. Everybody
got all up in arms when the Pharma bro decided
to buy this generic drug and hiked the price
up by a couple thousand percent. Nobody talks
about the fact that Pfizer does it, Merck
does it, Glaxo does it. They all do it.
This guy, Martin Shkreli, just wanted to get
in on the action and make a few dollars. Yeah,
it was a scumbag move, but all these other
scumbags working on the other big pharma companies
are doing the same thing to us everyday. We
have drugs in this country where the mark-up
on it is 20,000%. That money is not going
toward R & D, because most pharmaceutical
research and development is actually funded
by the federal government. That money is going
towards marketing and shareholders. It is
not being spent to develop new life saving
medications. The government has to step in,
and reign in the pharmaceutical industry.
It is ridiculous to think that in the United
States of America, people are dying because
they can't afford their medication.
