Drugs and Privilege: Big Business, Congress and the EpiPen
This new price gouge is the latest example of a corrupt system that hurts regular Americans—but we will hold accountable those who are responsible.
Intropin / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY
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But of the expanded assistance plan, Mike Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times says, “at heart it’s a cynical move that actually protects the company’s profits and harms the health care system… In fact, they’re illegal when applied to Medicare or Medicaid patients, because they may violate federal anti-kickback laws, which bar payments made to induce patients to choose particular services. Insurers and government programs will have to cover everything beyond the co-pay or deductible…”
And even at half-price, the cost of an EpiPen remains an outrage. In fact, some estimate that the dose of epinephrine used in the injector may really cost as little as a dollar.
In other words, this is one more, big old scam — yet another case of big business trying to pull the wool over the citizens’ eyes and pick our pockets while the government and our politicians mostly look the other way.
The Mylan mess is the cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated in a nutshell. Throughout government, politics and business, cash contributions are made, connections are used, strings are pulled and favors are requested and returned. So the system wins again, corrupt as hell.
But take notice. Realize that the rest of us are more and more aware of how we’re being had — and that we truly must be heard and heeded. Unless the tiny-hearted, gold-digging CEOs of America’s corporations and our leaders get the dollar signs out of their eyes and come to their senses, they are writing a prescription for an angry public response that not even their bought-and-paid-for Congress can hold at bay.
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