EpiPens are literally my lifeline, as well as the lifeline of everyone else with an allergy. Without them, so many people would die from fatal allergic reactions. I revere my EpiPens with a great love. I don’t go anywhere without them. Bottom line is, EpiPens are really important.
They’re also really expensive! Whenever my family buys a two pack of EpiPens from CVS, it costs about 600 dollars and since we need 3 packs it runs almost $1800. That’s a lot of money! I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s totally worth it. My mom says she shells out the money without question if it means keeping me safe. I wouldn’t even question it myself, if the epinephrine inside of them was a super expensive miracle liquid that Mylan spent a couple hundred dollars on for each EpiPen.
However, that just isn’t the case at all! According to Bloomberg, each EpiPen costs about a dollar for Mylan to produce! Now that allergies are getting more and more common and EpiPens are getting more and more needed by the second, it seems like Mylan can charge whatever they want for their life saving medicine. EpiPens used to be sold for about 100 dollars when they were being made in 2007. The sheer increase in price is just jaw-dropping.
Its just hard, because a lot of people don’t know what to do. When your back to school EpiPen script costs more than your parents’ mortgage payment, do you keep paying? My parents do. They put money aside all summer knowing it was coming. Some people literally can’t though. They just don’t have the money to pay the ridiculous prices. Then they have to worry about their loved ones dying of an anaphylactic reaction, and there is nothing they can do.
This issue has gotten a lot of response from the media, with a lot of important political figures chiming in with their opinions.
Hillary Clinton recently weighed in, according to the New York Post, saying that its “the latest example of a company taking advantage of its consumers.” I would have to agree. She went on to talk about how she doesn’t support the price hike and called for Mylan to lower the prices immediately.
Mylan responded, but not how some might have wanted. Instead of lowering the price, they made coupons. According to the Washington Post, the coupons, which provide about 300 dollars savings for a 600 dollar EpiPen two pack, are designed less to help existing customers and more to bring in new customers in the long run.
They also seem to be more of a Band-Aid solution to a problem that requires surgery. With the coupons expiring at the end of December, my guess is that Mylan is just doing this to avoid controversy during the presidential election season and reduce the risk of a legislated permanent price reduction, with discounts slowly reduced after the coupons expire in December.
Meanwhile, Heather Bresch, senator’s daughter and Mylan CEO, is living a pretty cushy life with her 19 million dollar salary made off of the hard earned savings of many struggling middle and lower class families.
I just don’t know what the solution is. On the one hand, Mylan has been charging millions of dollars for medicine that costs a dollar per injection. On the other hand, what other choice does everyone have? With a patent on their auto-injector design for years to come, an alternative to EpiPen would leave people having to inject themselves with a syringe, which is kind of hard to do when you’re having an anaphylactic reaction.
Before I close just to lighten the mood, I can’t resist adding a couple of the better political cartoons I found this week.
That’s it for today’s post. I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. My homework load has been a little heavy lately. But don’t worry, I am still very dedicated to this blog. Stay tuned for more posts in the very near future!
Until next time!
Gary