Entry 1: EpiPen’s pricing debacle and its impact on patients, insurers – Thea Singer http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2016/08/epipens-soaring-price-increase-and-rebate-and-what-both-mean-for-healthcare-economics-and-policy/
An EpiPen is a lifesaver for individuals who have anaphylactic or allergic reactions to materials because it provides a strong, respective dose of epinephrine to adults and children. In recent news, Mylan Inc has raised the price of EpiPens to a little of $600. At first glance, I thought that the motive behind this price hike was so increase the flow of revenues for the company. Many opponents of this price hike also have a similar view. They feel that this price hike is dangerous for consumers because there are no generic products similar to the EpiPen. This monopolistic approach has raised questions as to how drugs should be sold in America. In response to the negativity received because of their price jack, Mylan has announced a coupon system that may cover up to $300 of the cost of
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This article states that one of the initial factors that lead to this increase in premiums is at the hands of actuaries who did not accurately predict the types of customers that insurance providers were going to have. Furthermore, Weller states that this becomes a bigger problem because this increase in prices discourages healthy individuals from having insurance as it becomes very costly for them. As a result of healthy individuals dropping out of insurance pools, premiums again increase to cope for the sick patients, those that are major consumers of health insurance. As you can see, this cyclic process leads to a downwards spiral for many insurance companies as they begin to drop out of the markets in fear of losing more money. I feel that the only way to reduce premiums is to encourage the healthy population to rejoin the
Depending on which insurance consumers have can affect how much out of cost or co-payments consumers will have to pay. Insurance can cover either a large portion of the cost of prescriptions or eliminate the $200.00 co-payment that EpiPens require. Some insurances may be able to perform both. Adam Fein, president of the Pembroke Consulting, states that “some insurers may have negotiated deals with Mylan that end up making the brand-name cheaper than the generic” (Drake 3). If this is the case, some insurances would rather have consumers purchase the name-brand version of the EpiPen rather than the generic version that is offered. Mylan Pharmaceuticals offers a coupon that takes off up to $100.00 per prescription. This coupon is limited to only three prescriptions of two-pack cartons, however. This would leave the total of the EpiPens to $500.00 before taxes. Mylan Pharmaceuticals also offers the Mylan’s Patient Assistance Program which “allows patients, whom are without insurance, eligibility to apply for free EpiPens” (Drake 5). Mylan Pharmaceuticals now offers no-copayment fees to those who use a savings card provided by Mylan when purchasing the name-brand
With this in mind, our economy in the United States (U.S.), over the past decade has gone into a major decline. Furthermore, there has been an escalated cost in healthcare; new proposals that would reduce healthcare spending/cost and a continued growing trend involving the use of Cam (Matthew et al., 2011). Because of the economy, jobs and insurance benefits were lost. Employees were laid off and offered Cobra benefits in order to preserve their medical insurance. The only problem was that Cobra insurance was twofold what they were paying.
The article that was chosen is entitled “US lawmakers press Mylan on EpiPen price increases”. As the title suggests the article is about the push to find out exactly why the cost of EpiPen a lifesaving medication has increased from 100 dollars to 500 dollars in the past eight years. It goes on to explain the two routes taken by two lawmakers on the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee; one lawmaker asking Maylan directly and the other asking the Federal Trade Commission to look into the issue. This issue is related to pharmacy because that is where one can buy EpiPens and also the pharmacists could have played some role in bringing to notice the price increase.
Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a drugstore being built on every corner these days? Revco, Walgreens, and Rite Aid seem to be just a few of the drug store chains that are expanding. One has to wonder if this has anything to do with the possibility of including medicine under coverage by healthcare systems. This means that they may become part of a capitated payment system to the pharmaceutical providers. "By capitation, we mean a prospective payment to physicians or providers - either individually or as a group - of a fixed amount of money to care for each patient (Pearson, 1998)." In other words, every physician is provided a set sum of money whether they see any patients or not and every pharmacy would be given money whether they prescribe any drugs or not. Drug costs will rise.
Why are the prices so high? Some critics of the drug companies argue that the larger firms are ripping off the American public, are dishonest and, in some cases, unsafe. On the other hand, there are health care workers such as doctors and their supporters who claim that research and testing for drugs costs money. This supposedly justifies their prices for their products. Also, as an argument to their side, they say that their practice is a benefit to the improvement to mankind. It is a life saving business, but are these prices justified? As one can see, this is a very important issue in medicine today. It affects everyone involved with medicine, which is much of the American public. It also affects the physicians and drug makers.
Health insurance is currently an important issue in the United States. Everyday more and more Americans become uninsured due to job loss and an increase in premiums. These Americans add to the ever growing population of 45.7 million people who are currently uninsured (Bialik). Moreover only 27% of those uninsured are under the age of 65 (NCHC). This is staggering considering most of those who are uninsured have, or soon will, suffer from some sort of illness or injury. As a result they will not be able to afford proper treatment. Insurance premiums can range in cost from fifty dollars per month, to fifteen hundred dollars per month (Kreidler). An individual’s premium is determined by factors they choose as well as other factors looked at by their provider. The cost of health insurance in America varies depending on the controllable factors, like particular insurance policies, and uncontrollable factors, like age.
American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation. In 2003, premiums rose 10.1 percent and in 2002 they rose 15 percent. Employee spending for coverage increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. Those increases were lower than expected. (National Coalition on Health Care, 2005, Facts on health care costs). Premiums have risen five times faster than workers wages, on average. If medical spending continues to rise by just two percent more than personal income, by 2040 Medicare and Medicaid would hit 18.5 percent of the gross domestic product, leading the federal deficit to be 20.7 of the gross domestic product. (Melcer, R., 2004, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Rising Costs of healthcare pose huge challenges).
Health insurance companies are experts in setting traps for consumers to entice them into handing over a vast amount of money and not receive a single valuable service. After all there isn’t an entity available to regulate them.
“From the very beginning…. Obama’s message was not that the law would result in higher premiums, but better coverage. It was that the law would lower premiums, end of story” (Roy). Yet another promise has found itself broken after the ACA came into the sunlight of reality. “His $1 trillion in tax increases [hit] the middle class hard…” Mitt Romney said, “… in the health care system I envision, costs will be brought under control not because a board of bureaucrats decrees it but because everyone- providers, insurers, and patients –has incentives to do it” Unfortunately, that isn’t how it is. The nation is being forced into healthcare or being penalized for not joining the masses, because this plan will only work if there’s enough healthy people paying their newly doubled premiums regularly to help offset the expenses the unhealthy have right of the bat. “Back when Obamacare was being debated in Congress, Democrats claimed that it was right-wing nonsense that premiums would go up under Obamacare” (Roy). It’s now obvious that right-wing was headed in the right direction, and the middle class was
Our healthcare system has developed into a burden for most people and has terrible consequences for others. It consists of everyone paying for healthcare as a whole, instead of people paying for themselves. This system of healthcare has burdened the people who take care of themselves and have money, but extends the life of people who do not take care of themselves and live in poverty. This is not pleasant for the one’s who decided to go to school and make well over minimum wage. In turn, they are the individuals who end up paying for the people who decided to make bad decisions in their life that put them in the minimum wage position. Clearly, laws regulate the insurance companies but these regulations do not make any sense to many. Balko explains that, “More and m...
We recommend two generic versions of EpiPen at lower costs to patients. The first version will be similar to the injection currently available in the market at a lower price. Mylan’s leadership team has been discussing about offering a generic EpiPen at a fifty percent discount, but the price can be further reduced as we reformulate our strategy of targeting multiple segment market. The product will be targeted to people with low income that are currently unable to afford EpiPen.
With the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, it seems that the laws of supply and demand have changed since everybody is now mandated to have health insurance or pay a hefty fine to not have health insurance. With the “Health Insurance Exchange,” that also affects the economics of the situation as well, along with the price of everything. Since the Affordable Care Act has been enacted, the laws of supply and demand for insurance has changed drastically, and maybe not for the better.
In recent years’ health reform has been a driving force in the United States political system. If you watch the news, you will understand how citizens, the government, or the economy are or might be affected by some sort of change in medical regulation. One of these hot topic issues is the cost of prescription drugs. Every major drug market besides the United States regulates the price of drugs in some way (Abbott and Vernon). By the United States not doing so, many believe it opens consumers up to being exploited by large pharmaceutical companies.
The main advantage of the Affordable Care Act is that it lowers health care costs overall by making insurance affordable for more people. First, it wi...
Since the 60s, government budgets have been influenced by the need to finance healthcare especially the cost of Medicare and Medicaid benefits. According to CMS’ National Health Expenditure Projections , total health care expenditures have grown by an average of 2.5 percentage points faster per year than the nation‘s Gross Domestic Product. For about 60 percent of workers who receive some form of health care coverage from their employers, the cost of their health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses have increased significantly faster than their own wages; and between 1999 and 2008, both average health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications, and co-insura...