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If you're going to overcharge the U.S. government, you don't want to get caught:
Mylan NV for years overcharged the U.S. Medicaid health program to buy its EpiPen shot, the government said Wednesday, despite being told that it needed to give bigger discounts under the law. From 2011 to 2015, the joint state-federal program for the poor spent about $797 million on EpiPens, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said in a letter Wednesday. That included rebates of about 13 percent, but the U.S. should have been getting a larger discount of at least 23.1 percent.
While the agency didn't say exactly how much Mylan had overcharged, the amount could be substantial. Under law, companies are required to give [Medicaid] back any price increases they take on brand drugs above the rate of inflation, in addition to the 23.1 percent discount. Mylan, after acquiring the drug in 2007, has raised the price of EpiPen by about sixfold, to over $600 for a package of two. The government has in the past "expressly told Mylan that the product is incorrectly classified," CMS said in the letter, which came in response to an inquiry by Congress. "This incorrect classification has financial consequences for the amount that federal and state governments spend because it reduces the amount of quarterly rebates Mylan owes for EpiPen."
Previously:
EpiPen's Price Increased 400% since 2008
AllergyStop: $50 EpiPen is Production-Ready but...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday October 06 2016, @02:23PM
Not being an economist, I'm not sure whether to observe that
A) the free market inevitably converges on monopolies, or
B) our government just can't keep its hands out of the market by giving specific companies advantages which help them become monopolies.
Into which patents and various other things come into play.
P.S: For anyone saying that the U.S. isn't a free market economy, show me a country that is or STFU.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 06 2016, @08:31PM
According to Adam Smith the original source for the notion of the free market, a free market will always converge on a single source monopoly covering all legal economic activity if the government doesn't step in and regulate the activity.
As for the US being a free market economy, we absolutely aren't and the lack of other countries with free market economies is not a reasonable argument to make.