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EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

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Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#321

Post by kabdib »

inthewoods wrote: post #238
kabdib wrote: post #78

If your kid is allergic and needs an EpiPen (or something like it), most school districts will not allow the child to attend class unless they have one at the school. Maybe two. And of course you have to carry them. There's another two. So that's $2400. Out of pocket if you don't have insurance, or if your insurance doesn't pay. The EpiPen manufacturers are abusing their monopoly.

Don't forget that they expire as well - I have two kids that require the pens and even with insurance it works out to quite a cost.

And that pharmacies will often try to give you EpiPens with an expiration date less than a year away, indirectly increasing the cost (since most districts will require unexpired pens, and refuse your child even if then pen is a day too old).

It's a racket.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#322

Post by ancap »

JshWright wrote: post #159
ancap wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or regulations that set the price by law, the high cost remains It is important to note that even such a law does not magically remove the high cost. Certain products have a high price for a reason and setting the price by fiat is guaranteed to cause shortages. That's when people really start dying. See Venezuela for a prime current example.

There is no supply side reason for the high price Mylan is charging for EpiPens. It is a couple bucks worth of materials (plus QA, distribution, and all that). The R&D costs have long since been amortized away to nothing.

How do you know? The medical industry regularly has shortages of dozens of different products [1]. And that is to say nothing of the cost of navigating through all the regulatory hurdles.

[1] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/10/drug-shortages-...

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#323

Post by clavalle »

clarkmoody wrote: post #313
clavalle wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how does the free market test these kinds of things when there is every incentive to cut corners? We're not talking about toasters. How many people have to die before the market reacts? How much research into individual company's testing should a person do in order to buy an epipen?

Let's talk about a free market. > every incentive to cut corners Do you continue to patronize businesses that cut corners when you expect good customer service or a good product? The free market ruthlessly punishes businesses that do not meet consumer demands. Only through government interference are substandard businesses sustained. Profits are the signal that a business is doing something right. Ok, but the EpiPen…

>The free market ruthlessly punishes businesses that do not meet consumer demands.

True. But only as ruthlessly as the market approaches the free market ideal (readily available and accurate information on products, other users, choice at time of purchase etc). And we know there are no true free markets and that markets can drift far from the ideal even absent of government interference.

Who is the first to try out a newly released epipen?

>Only through government interference are substandard businesses sustained.

Now THAT is a very strong statement. Information asymmetry that has nothing to do with government is one category of ways a sub-standard business can thrive. Are we to believe that information asymmetry is all rooted in government interference?

> Profits are the signal that a business is doing something right.

Most of the time. An abundance of sustained profits is also a signal that the business is doing something wrong (or taking advantage of a market failure of some kind) or competitors would be jumping in and eating away at them.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#325

Post by limeyx »

gmisra wrote: post #18

One of the early on-line responses was "maybe we can figure out how to 3D print these cases". It turns out that an Epi-pen is just a plastic safety housing around a normal syringe. Some discussions: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4y5481/cost_of_epipen... https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/4y7f26/epipen_f...

I think it's patented so yeah but no...?

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#326

Post by invaliddata »

alexhornbake wrote: post #251
invaliddata wrote: post #146

The adrenaclick generic is much cheaper than the epipen, with or without insurance. Although technically different epinephrine auto injectors cannot be substituted (you can only be prescribed the one written by your doctor, or its generic equivalent), practically speaking the only difference between the epipen and the adrenaclick design is the instructions for use. I would hope there isn't a case of doctors being una…

Thank you for mentioning adrenaclick. Generics have been completely missing from the public debate. While epipen price gouging is very real, and a problem, there is one short term solution for allergy sufferers: demand an Rx for the generic. They are under $200 (source: checkyourmeds.com). Vote with your wallet!! Looks like the differences are: extra safety cap and Epipen brand has an auto-retracting needle. https://…

Unfortunately there is no generic for Epipen. Unless you have been written a prescription for Adrenaclick specifically, you can't get it, or the generic version.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#327

Post by gozur88 »

rdtsc wrote: post #133
schmidty wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is government protecting a monopoly free market exactly?

Why is it protecting a monopoly? Why doesn't it say "this EpiPen can't cost more than $30"?

That's what they did in Venezuela for a whole host of products you can no longer find.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#328

Post by mikeash »

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #306
mikeash wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, your neighbor can just ignore you, but he usually won't. Social pressure tends to work. That's just as true of companies as it is for bad neighbors. If your argument is merely that it might not work, then we're completely in agreement.

You can try the social pressure route every time this happens (and if you haven't noticed, this seems to be a recurring issue in health care), but unfortunately that's going to take more effort in the long run with fewer results. Many companies - whether morally justified or not - just won't respond to social pressure. Or, redirect those efforts into fixing the issue through legislation (either to open up the market…

How am I, an average citizen, supposed to fix this issue through legislation? Write to my representative? He'll just throw my letter on the pile, and our useless legislators will continue being useless.

The only way to get any legislative action on this is to get the electorate to care about it so that legislators get convinced that they need to act on this in order to keep their constituency returning to the polls and checking off their name.

And in order to do that, you need to talk about how problematic and reprehensible these moves are, so people actually care about it.

So really, both the social shaming and legislative approaches start out the same way. Unless you think you're talking to a dictator, your "stop whining and pass some laws" approach is nonsensical.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#329

Post by JshWright »

ancap wrote: post #322
JshWright wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no supply side reason for the high price Mylan is charging for EpiPens. It is a couple bucks worth of materials (plus QA, distribution, and all that). The R&D costs have long since been amortized away to nothing.

How do you know? The medical industry regularly has shortages of dozens of different products [1]. And that is to say nothing of the cost of navigating through all the regulatory hurdles. [1] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/10/drug-shortages-...

The price of epinephrine in other packaging (vials, ampules, etc) has remained more or less unchanged (speaking from firsthand experience as someone who orders supplies for an ambulance service). It is not an epinephrine shortage driving this price increase.

Similarly, the EpiPen is already an FDA approved product, and has had no new regulatory hurdles to jump through recently.

Re: EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers

#330

Post by Apocryphon »

clarkmoody wrote: post #313
clavalle wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how does the free market test these kinds of things when there is every incentive to cut corners? We're not talking about toasters. How many people have to die before the market reacts? How much research into individual company's testing should a person do in order to buy an epipen?

Let's talk about a free market. > every incentive to cut corners Do you continue to patronize businesses that cut corners when you expect good customer service or a good product? The free market ruthlessly punishes businesses that do not meet consumer demands. Only through government interference are substandard businesses sustained. Profits are the signal that a business is doing something right. Ok, but the EpiPen…

> Do you continue to patronize businesses that cut corners when you expect good customer service or a good product?

Do you have cable and/or phone service? Would we be using Comcast or AT&T if monopolies or regional monopolies didn't make them the only choices? Monopolies that were enabled through government inaction, by the way, not through government enabling. [1]

> The free market ruthlessly punishes businesses that do not meet consumer demands. Only through government interference are substandard businesses sustained. Profits are the signal that a business is doing something right.

There's always going to be the problem of information asymmetry. Most people don't have the time to read Consumer Reports, go through the research of what brands cut corners and which don't, and do the cost-benefit calculation of picking quality vs. price.

I don't think government interference is somehow propping up the fast food industry, or bad policies from Comcast.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2709834

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