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posted by
martyb
on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:34AM
from the staying-alive-is-getting-more-expensive dept.
from the staying-alive-is-getting-more-expensive dept.
EpiPen's price has ballooned about 400% since 2008, rising from about a $100 list price to $500 today. The EpiPen is one of the most important life-saving medical innovations for people with severe food allergies—which affect as many as 15 million Americans and 1 in 13 children in the United States. But its price has exploded over the last decade despite few upgrades to the product itself. The product's lack of competitors is likely a significant driver of the costs. [...] [The] EpiPen enjoys a near-monopoly on the market with annual sales of more than $1.3 billion and nearly 90% U.S. market share.
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EpiPen's Price Increased 400% since 2008
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And tomorrow will be like today, only more so.
-- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version
(Score: 4, Informative) by ledow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:47AM
https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/uk/allergy/epipen [lloydspharmacy.com]
1 Pen (£49.99 per pen)
49.99 GBP = 65.94 USD
Welcome again to why the American healthcare system sucks.
And, to be honest, I'm not even sure you aren't given EpiPens on prescription in the UK, in which case it would only cost £8.40.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:53AM
The U.S. health care system sucks because it is "for profit". That means it is in the Hospital's and Drug Company's interest to maximize profit. If they could kill you and still make a profit, you could damn sure bet that it would be done. People balk at government run health care, but there is no profit motive in it.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:56AM
Americans balk at it. The rest of as simply relieved.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:51AM
And that's precisely why US healthcare sucks.
It has nothing to do with making people better. It has everything to do with extracting money from them.
Make people live longer, work longer, and be healthy for longer, and they much more tax than anything you could get from tax on what the healthcare industry can squeeze out of them while they're still able to pay.
But the US don't understand that. At all. I can't fathom it.
"Pay me for this pill." "Does it work?" "Maybe, but it makes me lots of money". Why the hell would you go to that doctor or listen to what he has to say?
In Britain, we spend our time at the doctors thus:
"Have this pill. And this one. And this one. They have to have met a certain standard of efficacy to be offered to you and cost nothing more than an administrative charge (or free if you can't afford that) even if it's a expensive and prolonged course of cancer drugs. And I get NOTHING back from saying you should have this one over any other." "Thanks." "Oh, and don't forget to come back next month for your free check-up".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:19PM
It's a lot sicker than that. The poor get the thrilling choice of dying or being scorned for being ungrateful and cheating those poor, heroic doctors. They forgo health care and let health problems fester and get worse, until it is a medical emergency. Then they go to the emergency, which is legally required to treat them no matter how unable to pay they are. Sometimes they don't make it, dying before the hospital can save them.
Afterwards, if they're still alive and able, they soon get yuuuge bills they can't possibly pay. Some try to pay it off in installments over a very long time. But many have little choice but to stiff the doctors. So, next, the debt collectors come calling with threats to trash their credit rating even worse than it already is, and finally threats to sue them. And sometimes it does go that far, and the patient has to make a court appearance, or lose by default. Show up and lose, or don't show, either way the poor citizens may see their pathetic little bank account seized, 100% of the money taken, which upends their precarious lives because suddenly all their payments, for basic utilities and food and the like don't go through, and the bank gleefully piles on with big fees. The courts can also garnish pay, but that is limited to a mere 25% of each paycheck, can't take 100% like they can with a checking account.
One result of all this exertion to squeeze blood from stones is to make official that M. Citizen is very naughty, and deserves punishment. The system almost seems set up to put good citizens in that position. But I've concluded that refusing to pay outrageous prices is about the only viable thing a person can do. I've tried working within the system, using their internal appeals processes to contest amounts and choices. It was no good. Heard another story of a father whose son went to one of those urgent care facilities, complaining of abdominal pains. They ran up a huge bill of around $5000 running every test they could think of, and concluded that the young man was suffering from... constipation! Son couldn't afford that, so they went after dad. He angrily refused to pay.
Sadly, Obamacare hasn't improved matters much. We need more reform than that. Even with health insurance, a citizen can be hit with massive medical bills. Over half of all bankruptcies are thanks to medical bills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:11PM
It's completely retarded. Plenty of moderately wealthy and rich US people say they don't want to pay for some poor person's healthcare - they say the poor people should have taken better care of themselves or worked harder etc.
The real retarded thing is, in most cases they still end up paying anyway!
1) As you say via poor sitting in ER till they get sick enough to get treatment. Guess who pays?
2) They commit a crime to get $$$$$ for healthcare. Guess who pays?
3) They commit a crime, intentionally get caught to get healthcare. Seriously, there are a fair number of people robbing banks for a dollar to get healthcare:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/nc-man-allegedly-robs-bank-health-care-jail/story?id=13887040 [go.com]
https://www.rt.com/usa/oregon-man-bank-robbery-healthcare-126/ [rt.com]
http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2016/06/29/judge-gives-lenient-sentence-old-man-who-robbed-branson-bank-health-care/86512770/ [news-leader.com]
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/on-purposely-getting-arrested-to-get-life-saving-surgery/273282/ [theatlantic.com]
And that's an even more expensive way of providing healthcare. Imagine how expensive it is to pay for the courts, police, counselling for the bank teller, prison for the robber AND the actual healthcare.
4) Or as you also mentioned, they pay and end up crippled by bankruptcy and less productive to society.
Sure some of them die quietly and conveniently, but not all of them.
Thus even if you're selfish, if you can't get out of paying taxes you'd prefer single payer universal healthcare[1] (I'd want one that's limited to a max $$$,$$$ per person per X years, if I'm that sick to require millions of dollars worth of healthcare and I'm not a billionaire I'm going to go for euthanasia whether other people agree or not. and even if I'm a billionaire if there aren't actually good treatments for my condition I'd throw a a party/festival instead maybe one for myself and selected guests and one for others who are more energetic).
[1] Unless you're one of those profiting greatly from all of this (merely working in the insurance industry doesn't count - because in other countries and systems you can still make a decent living working in an insurance company ).
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:49PM
"Pay me for this pill." "Does it work?" "Maybe, but it makes me lots of money". Why the hell would you go to that doctor or listen to what he has to say?
Because what else are you supposed to do?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by termigator on Tuesday August 23 2016, @05:30PM
Die.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:59PM
"Pay me for this pill." "Does it work?" "Maybe, but it makes me lots of money". Why the hell would you go to that doctor or listen to what he has to say?
Except the patient wouldn't be paying the doctor, and doctors working directly (e.g. on salary) for a medical center or HMO like Kaiser [kp.org] don't get kickbacks.
Until recently, my Kaiser prescription receipts let me know the original price for each drug that they had argued the company down from, and the numbers were still astronomical — in the hundreds for generics, sometimes into the $1,500+ range for a non-generic.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:10PM
The US healthcare system isn't "for profit", it is "for votes". The only way the price can be $500 is if there is no one selling it for less, and if no one is selling it for less, it is because the government isn't letting them, and if the government isn't letting them, the motive isn't profit, it's vote buying.
Stop attributing government corruption to free markets when there isn't even a free market.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:56PM
You are still seeing the free market even if it's not doing what you want a free market to do. But you're right, blaming the free market is wrong, as the invisible hand is actually a back-hander (and yes, that is deliberately a 3-way play on words).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 24 2016, @03:11AM
It's a free market, everyone is free to buy laws and politicians. The health industry has been smart enough to invest in laws and politicians, so they get rewarded for being good at business, thinking ahead and making good investments.
Perhaps you're one of those socialists who think that government should work for the people?
(Score: 3, Informative) by WizardFusion on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:04AM
I get free prescriptions, so for me it would cost nothing. Woohoo for the NHS.