Health Care Costs

[dopefan99]

We all remember the outcry when Mylan marked up its EpiPen by 400 percent, but that was merely an extreme example of the rational-capitalist behavior drug firms engage in all the time. When your product can literally save a life, and you’ve got a 20-year patent monopoly on it, you’ll tend to price it like the goldmine it is unless someone steps in to regulate you.

Wow! This is a horrific answer! It is mostly wrong… I’m highly disappointed in Cecil Adams.

Cecil says the problem is unregulated capitalism. No! The problem is overly regulated crony capitalism that stops any competitor from selling injectable epinephrine for illegitimate reasons.

The epinephrine in an EpiPen can be bought for about $0.10. That is less regulated capitalism. If one vendor jacked up the price, consumers can buy the same epinephrine from a similar vendor for ~$0.10.

The health care regulation stopped many other EpiPen-like products from being sold for wildly illegitimate reasons. The crony regulation is the problem, not the solution.

For a much better explanation of the EpiPen issue which highlights the bigger problems with the health industry read:

Reverse Voxsplaining: Drugs vs. Chairs

[boffking]

What about Adrenaclick? That serves the same purpose as the EpiPen, and is made by a different company. AFAIK, they are still on the market.

[leahcim]

@dopefan99

Cecil says the problem is unregulated capitalism. No! The problem is overly regulated crony capitalism that stops any competitor from selling injectable epinephrine for illegitimate reasons.

To be fair, Cecil refers to the drug companies doing the rational capitalist thing, not the entire system being rational capitalism.