Robber Baron Knows No Bound
Always look on the bright side of life, says CEO who raised EpiPen price by more than 400%
Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus talks about Heather Bresch, chief executive of Mylan, the maker of EpiPens, and what he considers Breschâs recent effort to rewrite her history of gouging poor families.
The myriad problems with the U.S. healthcare system arenât the fault of any one person. But every so often, an industry executive spouts something so wrong-headed, it shines a helpful light on what weâre up against.
Heather Bresch, chief executive of the drug company Mylan, maker of EpiPens, stepped into it Monday in a CNN podcast.
After about 40 minutes of benign, getting-to-know-you questions, interviewer Poppy Harlow finally got around to asking about the lingering stink that surrounds Bresch having jacked up the price of life-saving EpiPens by more than 400%.
Mylan didnât invent the devices. It bought the rights to sell them in 2007.
Bresch tap danced a little, talking about how the price hike was justified because of a brand-awareness campaign and a package redesign. She then slid past her money-grubbing behavior and focused instead on her companyâs sensitive and caring response to public outrage.
After hearing that people were angry about Mylan raising the price of a two-pack of EpiPens from about $100 to more than $600, Bresch said Mylan didnât hesitate to bring out a generic version of the EpiPen that sold for just $300.
The public âneeded a solution and wanted a solution,â she said. âAnd so before we did anything else, before I testified in Congress, before I did anything, we came to the market with a generic and cut the price in half.â
This is bogus on many levels.
First off, the outrage had been building for months, especially among families who relied on EpiPens to keep children with severe allergies alive. Momentum picked up after Bloomberg ran a story on the price increases in September 2015.
Things didnât really take off, though, until the following summer, in July 2016, when more news outlets started comparing Mylanâs egregious EpiPen price hikes to the actions of disgraced drug-industry exec Martin Shkreli.
Heâs the guy who shamelessly raised the price of a six-decade-old anti-infection drug called Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 a pill.
Shkreli became the poster boy for industry avarice in February 2016 when he refused to testify in Congress, invoking his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and smirking all the while at frustrated lawmakers.
In August of that year, members of Congress started asking Mylan about the more than 400% markup of EpiPens.
A week later, it was reported that Breschâs total compensation as CEO soared by nearly 700% â from $2.5 million in 2007 to almost $19 million in 2015 â as EpiPens grew more and more expensive.
It was at this point that Bresch announced an âauthorized genericâ EpiPen â that is, manufactured by the same company that makes the name-brand version for twice the price.
When it was released to the public in December 2016, Bresch patted herself on the back for taking âdecisive actionâ and âunprecedented actionâ to help American families.
I asked Mylan if it cared to comment on Breschâs version of events. No one got back to me.
Be that as it may, letâs just think about that âlower-costâ alternative, shall we?
If youâre catching hell for more than quintupling the price of a drug for which you did no research to create, do you really get points for merely tripling the price? I donât think so.
Moreover, Mylan was profitably selling EpiPens in Canada and Europe for a fraction of the U.S. price.
Again, the company had done no R&D. All it did was purchase the rights to the device.
Yet Mondayâs CNN podcast gave Bresch plenty of room to define herself as a strong, damn-the-torpedoes corporate leader, the kind of person who wonât hesitate to do whatâs right.
She described the EpiPen scandal as âa defining momentâ that left her a better person.
âThere is no question it strengthened me,â Bresch said. âThings happen for a reason.â
What reason is that? Unfettered corporate greed?
No. Bresch painted herself as a victim of a broken system.
âI wasnât going to be apologetic for operating in the system that existed,â she said. âWhat I decided to do was put my effort and energy to ⊠talk about what needed to be fixed.â
Bresch added that she hopes she can be part of the solution as President Trump seeks to fulfill repeated pledges to reduce drug prices, although he hasnât announced a single meaningful move.
As for her sky-high increase in pay as she was gouging patients, she said people should be happy that a woman in the drug industry was making as much as the guys. #YouGoGirl.
Iâd love to say that CNN called Bresch on all this nonsense, but it didnât. It gave her an hourâs worth of podcast time to sing her own praises and rewrite history.
Harlow wound things up by saying, âFinish this sentence for me: âI will have succeeded when …ââ
Bresch didnât hesitate. âI will have succeeded when I have done everything I can possibly do to impact how healthcare is delivered.â
Last August, Mylan finalized a $465-million settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve claims it overcharged the government for EpiPens by misclassifying them as a generic rather than a branded product. This resulted in the company making smaller rebates to state Medicaid programs.
âMylan misclassified its brand name drug, EpiPen, to profit at the expense of the Medicaid program,â acting U.S. Atty. William D. Weinreb said at the time. âTaxpayers rightly expect companies like Mylan that receive payments from taxpayer-funded programs to scrupulously follow the rules.â
The company admitted no wrongdoing.
Margaret Qualley thinks Heather Bresch should slut herself on any of the thot platform eg. OnlyFans as big fish sugar daddy like Jeff Bezos should be able to absorb price hike of even 1,000,000,000,000%… No sweat.
Margaret Qualley Nude Scene From âDonnybrookâ
Margaret Qualley naked scene from âDonnybrookâ (2018) – Probably a lousy movie (rated D), but the boobies sure are solid.
The video above features actress Margaret Qualleyâs full frontal nude scene from the film âDonnybrookâ.
Margaret is best known for starring in the HBO series âThe Leftoversâ, but few realize that Margaretâs real claim to fame is that she is the daughter of longtime Hollywood harlot Andie MacDowell.
Unfortunately Andie MacDowell waited until she was absolutely ancient at 57-years-old before doing her first nude scene in the video clip above. So at least Margaret had more sense than her slutty mother to start whoring her body early before it became a sickeningly saggy mess.
However with that being said, Margaret Qualley will still have to pay dearly for her nude crimes against morality. For despite her pleasingly under-developed unfeminine frame, us pious Muslims will pelt this lanky aquatic tramp with many stones⊠Skipping them across the water into her degenerate noggin until she submerges back into the murky depths.
Margaret Qualley
American actress
Sarah Margaret Qualley, known as Margaret Qualley, is an American actress. Qualley was born in Montana and is the daughter of actress Andie MacDowell and former model, Paul Qualley. Margaret grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. She trained as a ballerina and at sixteen she earned an apprenticeship at the North Carolina Dance Theater company. However, she changed her focus to acting and decided to attend London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Margaret also studied at New York University. Wikipedia
Born: October 23, 1994 (age 24 years), Montana, United States
Height: 5’67” 1.73 m
Unfortunately Andie MacDowell waited until she was absolutely ancient at 57-years-old before doing her first nude scene in the video clip above. So at least Margaret had more sense than her slutty mother to start whoring her body early before it became a sickeningly saggy mess.
However with that being said, Margaret Qualley will still have to pay dearly for her nude crimes against morality. For despite her pleasingly under-developed unfeminine frame, us pious Muslims will pelt this lanky aquatic tramp with many stones⊠Skipping them across the water into her degenerate noggin until she submerges back into the murky depths.