Parker took to Instagram on Thursday to distance herself from the company and urged it to “take swift action to lower the cost to be more affordable for whom it is a life-saving necessity”.
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She paid $175 under an old insurance plan but now has a high-deductible plan and she’s already exhausted her health savings account. Hopefully some new legislation will come out regarding decreasing the costs of medicine like the Epipen.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and members of Congress from both parties have quickly ramped up criticism of the price Mylan charges for the medicine.
Local pharmacists say they don’t believe the savings card will be applicable to everyone and that EpiPen should have never gotten this expensive to begin with.
CBS News reports that the price of EpiPens has increased by more than 480 percent since 2009, two years after Mylan purchased the device from Merck. An additional $334 goes to pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, wholesalers and pharmacy retailers. The company said a family of four with income up to $97,200 won’t pay out of pocket.
“Had we reduced the list price, I couldn’t ensure that everyone who needs an EpiPen gets one”, she said.
“Unfortunately it’s really going to affect our parents with the price hike, some of the parents may not be able to afford the cost of the EpiPens for their students that go to school”, said Paulette Rozneck, the Student Health Services Coordinator for LISD. The $23 billion EpiPen maker on Thursday bowed to political pressure over the affordability of its severe-allergy treatment.
“I recently learned that the price of EpiPen has been systematically raised by Mylan to a point that renders the medication cost-prohibitive to most people”, Parker wrote.
Mylan is the latest company to be caught up in the growing outrage at apparently egregious drug price increases. Blumenthal and Klobuchar are calling for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and a Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible antitrust violations at Mylan. The company said around half of US schools are participating in that program. “Anywhere between 40 and 50 percent less costly is kind of what would be expected”, she adds. He expects that to translate into a 3-4 per cent hit to Mylan’s earnings per share over the next few years.
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Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of CT and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota addressed the price hike at press conferences alongside doctors and affected families Wednesday. Steadily raising list prices only means governments and insurers – and thus society – end up paying more.
