Big Pharma companies have no problem jacking up their prices just to line their own pockets, but their greed is beginning to result in death because Americans can no longer afford medications. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript of the above video:
A story on Mental Floss caught my attention the other day when they talked about the fact that the price of Epipens … Pens that are used for people with allergies to inject epinephrine very quickly and easily … The price of those has risen by 450% in less than a decade. Now because of this, you buy a pack of two pens, it’s roughly $600. Because of that, EMTs in cities all over this country are having to forego purchasing these. When they respond to a medical emergency, they do not have these Epipens to inject into people who are having allergic reactions, who’s throats are closing up. Instead they have to rely on the old method of a bottle of epinephrine and a syringe, hope they get the dosage right, and try to find a vein. Now, this again is because of the cost.
I have two kids with peanut allergies, so twice a year, I have to buy two sets of Epipens at $1,200 apiece. I have insurance. I have pretty decent insurance, and I still have to pay this much money for a life saving drug that I have to have on hand at all times. I’m not unique here. Millions of people all over this country rely on this medication. That is why we have to reign in the pharmaceutical industry.
This is a uniquely American problem, as are so many other things that are happening right now. It is uniquely American, because the pharmaceutical industry have so much power over politicians that they have actually negotiated with the government to the point that the government can’t negotiate prices. That is written into the Affordable Care Act, Obama Care. The thing that a lot of liberals were like wow, this is a great piece of legislation. No, it’s not. It’s a massive giveaway to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
We need to do what other countries do. What Canada does, what the United Kingdom does, what most of Europe does. That is negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower prices of life saving medication. Everybody got all up in arms when the Pharma bro decided to buy this generic drug and hiked the price up by a couple thousand percent. Nobody talks about the fact that Pfizer does it, Merck does it, Glaxo does it. They all do it.
This guy, Martin Shkreli, just wanted to get in on the action and make a few dollars. Yeah, it was a scumbag move, but all these other scumbags working on the other big pharma companies are doing the same thing to us everyday. We have drugs in this country where the mark-up on it is 20,000%. That money is not going toward R & D, because most pharmaceutical research and development is actually funded by the federal government. That money is going towards marketing and shareholders. It is not being spent to develop new life saving medications. The government has to step in, and reign in the pharmaceutical industry. It is ridiculous to think that in the United States of America, people are dying because they can’t afford their medication.
