"Because we can get away with it." is essentially the answer given by Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO to the question of why the company raised the price of Darapram, a drug that's been around for 62 years by 5000%. That's not a typo.
Turing acquired the drug by purchasing the company that made it last month, and greed being good, decided to flaunt it. One pill now costs 750 bucks, up from $13.50. No really, that's not a typo and it's not unique. It's not, it seems, that these things didn't make a profit, the development costs having been payed back long ago. It's just that Medical care in America is about making the rich richer, about Turing paying for the company they bought by screwing the sick and screwing the Insurance companies who pass the cost on to you and me - because they can and because the Republicans made a deal while calling objectors Communists.
The cost of existing medications that some people need to stay alive has gone up by hundreds and hundreds of percentage points and not because they cost more to make. It's because they can get away with it and if you don't have insurance, your option is to decrease the surplus population.
And the idiots like Sarah Palin insist that Obamacare has death panels while "buy or die" has replaced free market competition. Republicans are for free markets, right?
Now if you do have insurance that covers prescriptions, the cost is picked up by the premium payers: us, our employers or Medicare thanks to the Idiot Bush who worked out a deal with the drug companies that forbids any bargaining or competition. It's one of the reasons they can sell drugs in the US at the highest prices in the world. Turing CEO Martin Shkreli said the price increase brings Daraprim more in line with other drugs for rare diseases, not that that stinks of collusion and price fixing, and is a polite way of saying it's OK for Turing to gouge the sick because everyone else is doing it and besides with all that money we could maybe develop some other drugs you might like -- or increase the size of the corporate jet or hand out bonuses, or whatever. Hey, it's Capitalism. Something you don't like about Capitalism? You're some kind of Commie?
Martin Shkreli is a former hedge-fund manager. What did you expect from a schlep who has gouged the public and cheated the government for years! No, this is not capitalism; it's organized crime sanctioned by a corrupt political system.
ReplyDeleteHere’s another rogue company that everyone used to think was a model corporate citizen: The Data Johnson & Johnson Thought It Buried.
ReplyDeleteAnd here’s another: Volkswagon Rigged Cars to Defeat Smog Tests.
This is why capitalism needs to be regulated.
ReplyDelete"What did you expect from a schlep who has gouged the public and cheated the government for years!"
ReplyDeleteA Senate seat? A Governorship? There may not be a chicken in every pot, but it looks like there's a skeleton in most closets.
JC: I'm tempted to say the only difference between organized crime and business as usual is in the regulation and enforcement.
Somtimes I think organized crime is less criminal than some businesses. Yes capitalism needs regulation to keep it honest and a free market is only free if regulated.
ReplyDeleteDidn't used to think this way but have seen enough at this point in time to know most businesses view long term rational self interest in a way that ends up being nothing more than greed and selfishness in the worst sense of the word.
There is such a thing as obscene profit, and everything that implies.
ReplyDelete