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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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(Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:12PM
If insurance is the reason, why are they more like $100-150 here in Canada? At least in Ontario, OHIP doesn't cover medication, so we have to pay out of pocket for medicine here if we don't have insurance to cover it. If the complete answer is "because insurance" then they'd be a similar price in Canada to what they are in the US.
The answer here isn't "get rid of insurance". Maybe it's get rid of the "free" market and introduce regulations to limit corporate greed and protect citizens. In the end, I don't pretend to know the right answer either. But after experiencing the American health care system for close to a decade, I sure am glad to be back in Canada. I mean, American care is pretty good, as long as you have bulletproof insurance...
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:49PM
If insurance is the reason, why are they more like $100-150 here in Canada?
You mean, in Canada (where at least part of healthcare is public and the government makes the occasional gesture towards regulating industry) why is it somewhere between the US price (where you need insurance to pay for doctors, operations, ambulances, hospital beds etc. and the entire system is run for the benefit of the insurers) and the UK price (where you don't need insurance at all*)?
Sounds about right.
(* flat rate of £8 per prescription capped at a bit over £100/year total, unless you qualify for free prescriptions).