Serpent profiteers: how a summer camp snakebite turned into a $142,938 medical bill – Boing Boing

Final July, a nine year fashioned miniature one named Oakley Yoder got bitten on the toe by a venomous snake whereas at summer season camp in Jackson Falls, Illinois: the preliminary invoice for her remedy came out to $142,938.

A huge chunk of that became as soon as for the air ambulance: $55,577.64. But the final notice item on the invoice became as soon as $67,957 for four vials of antivenin from the UK pharmaceutical monopolist BTG Plc, whose product, Crofab, retails for $3,198 in america (a Mexican rival that would possibly well now no longer be legally imported to america charges $200/dose).

The St. Vincent Evansville sanatorium marked up the antivenin (already marked up by 16,000%, from $200 to $3,198) to $16,989.25, an additional 500% — that’s 85 times the cost that Yoder and her insurer would have paid in Mexico.

The family’s insurer, IU Smartly being Plans, negotiated the final designate down to $107,863.33, and a supplemental insurance thought that the family took out for summer season camp lined $7,286.34 in further charges. The family did no longer favor to pay one thing else (but every insured person will terminate up paying a miniature bit more in future premiums to be sure that IU and its opponents remain wildly a success).

The FDA has since well-liked a determined Mexican antivenin product known as Anavip that can retail for $1,220; the product’s entry to the US market became as soon as delayed by six years due to this of a patent claim by monopolist BTG Plc whose settlement has contributed to Anavip’s high designate, which now involves a royalty paid to BTG for every vial supplied, till BTG’s patent expires in 2028.

There is momentum rising for doable govt motion on drug costs. In states and in Congress, various proposals had been floated, which include allowing Medicare to negotiate drug costs, tying the U.S. designate of pricy medication to the usual designate in other developed nations, and allowing the govtto inject competition correct into a market when there is none — reminiscent of speeding generic drug approvals or allowing for imports from other nations.

Summer Bummer: A Younger Camper’s $142,938 Snakebite [Shots/All Things Considered]

(via Bare Capitalism)

(Represent: St Vincent Evansville/Facebook)