Today’s Face of Evil

Today’s face of evil belongs to Heather Bresch. She is the most recent CEO outed for displaying a shocking lack of ethics. The so called “pharmaceutical drug crisis” has been in the news more than usual of late thanks to Mylan Pharmaceuticals whose CEO Heather Bresch raised prices of the life saving EpiPen 500% and her own salary 671%. I wonder, did she develop this drug, or is she just pimping it out? Let’s out her dad while we are at it, because U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), did his constituents a disservice when he released his daughter out into the world.

Not only are her actions self serving, but her business practices, while perhaps not entirely criminal, raise the question of why laws are in place that promote this type of activity. In 2014 she reincorporated Mylan in the Netherlands as a means of lowering the company’s tax rate while maintaining its headquarters and manufacturing plants in the US. Tax shelters for pharmaceutical companies —and the rich get richer — meanwhile junior’s throat is closing up after a bee sting.

Because of the press this particular story has gotten, Mylan Pharmaceutical stocks have taken a hit. A petition has accumulated some 63,000 signatures, urging Mylan to lower the price of EpiPens. While Heather Breasch has not yet responded to calls for a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, she is back pedaling a bit. She is considering lowering prices for a small demographic, while maintaining them for the majority of the population and she will continue billing health insurance companies the full newly inflated price. Call me an idealist, but I don’t think this is enough back pedaling.

And this problem is not unique to EpiPen. I recently tried to fill a prescription for my teenaged son’s acne medication and when I was asked for $675 for a one month supply, I feared anaphylactic shock myself when my throat tightened and I croaked out the words “Cancel the prescription because I can not pay for it. I have said it before and I will continue to say the middle class foots the bill for corporate greed. There are programs in place to aid low income citizens, and the wealthy don’t bat an eye at these prices.

Pharmaceutical price gouging is a phenomenon unique to the United States. I could go to Mexico, or China, or India, and purchase any of the drugs that are obscenely priced here for pennies on the dollar there. Lobbyists in Washington zero in on the politicians who are easy to bribe, and that is the end of this story. The US government is incapable of changing this widespread problem because lobbyists are too good at what they do. Until we eliminate lobbyists from the political process nothing will change.

Public shaming of people like Heather Bresch is all we have. To be fair, the problem of corporate greed extends far beyond pharmaceutical companies. I wonder how is it that Bernie Madoff, and Enron executives like Jeffrey Skilling were held accountable for their crimes, and yet pharmaceutical companies, airlines, banking executives, etc. continue to profit using equally unethical business practices?  Anyone?
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August 25, 2016, Daily One Word Prompt: Obvious~ <a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/obvious/”>Obvious</a&gt;