Thread by @DrEricDing, ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:This crying mother can’t afford the [...]

Eric Feigl-Ding

DrEricDing

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ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:

This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.

yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.

Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.

Let that sink in.

2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.

America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the country... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive

The absurdly high cost of insulin, explained

Why Americans ration a drug discovered in the 1920s.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive

3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”

4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M

Meanwhile:

Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs

1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive

500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.

5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.

6) Yet, America has the highest rate of skipping drugs -- 1 in 6 patients!!! It’s shameful how much Americans have to skip their prescription medicine compared to other countries that pay much less and have zero copays.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/upshot/drugs-cost-diabetes.html

7) Not just insulin, parents of kids with allergies are forced to shell out $600 for EpiPen because it is a matter of life and death. Here is a dark story about Mylan, the EpiPen maker who pharma jacked up the price from a few $ to $600.

8) First, Mylan didn’t even invent epinephrine, which is simply our human hormone, better known as *adrenaline*, packaged into an

injector (not some wild invention), invented by scientists paid by taxpayers. But big pharma gets to hold parents of kids with allergies hostage.

8) First, Mylan didn’t even invent epinephrine, which is simply our human hormone, better known as *adrenaline*, packaged into an injector (not some wild invention), invented by scientists paid by taxpayers. But big pharma gets to hold parents of kids with allergies hostage.

9) Even worse, Mylan was also recently ***criminally charged*** by Department of Justice for outright fraudulent EpiPen billing, and fined $465 million for its corruption. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/mylan-agrees-pay-465-million-resolve-false-claims-act-liability-underpaying-epipen-rebates

Mylan Agrees to Pay $465 Million to Resolve False Claims Act

Pharmaceutical companies Mylan Inc. and Mylan Specialty L.P. have agreed to pay $465 million to resolve claims that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly misclassifying EpiPen as a generic

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/mylan-agrees-pay-465-million-resolve-false-claims-act-liability-underpaying-epipen-rebates

10) What we need most of all is #MedicareForAll.

My wife @andreafeigl1 & I used to study universal health care. Key factors of success:

Not dictatorship—10x

Proportional rep elections—2.8x

Less ethnic fractionalization—2x

Less wealth inequality https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168851013001711

Evidenced Formal Coverage Index and universal healthcare enactment: A prospective longitudinal...

Determinants of universal healthcare (UHC) are poorly empirically understood. We undertook a comprehensive study of UHC development using a novel Evid…

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168851013001711

11) if you cannot afford your hospital bills... here is something important to know... https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1351360824917569537