Piling On

So here's a story that's been burning up the interwebs today. You can read about it here (on a domestic politics blog), here (on a feminist nerd blog) or here (in the New York Times), and I'm sure there's a few other places it's been commented on as well.

Let me add to the pile.

Here's the basic gist of the story...

Daraprim is the standard of care drug for something called toxoplasmosis, which is a life-threatening parasitic infection. The drug's been around for 62 years, so the patent's long expired, but since there's not many people who come down with toxoplasmosis, and so not much of a need for Daraprim, only one company makes the drug.

Last month that company was purchased by a pharmaceutical start-up created by an ex-hedge fund manager. Said hedge fund manager then raised the price on the drug from $13.50 per pill to $750 a pill. Said hedge fund manager was subsequently shocked at the blowback on his pricing decision, and so came up with three separate arguments for why the price increase was justified:

Argument #1 -- So few people suffer from the condition that the price increase won't have an impact on the health care industry, so people shouldn't be concerned about it. 

I can't wait for this one to appear on Law & Order: "I only killed one person, so it's hardly worth worrying about."

Argument #2 -- We're just trying to keep our company in business. 

Ah yes, because that's been such a problem for the last 62 years.

Argument #3 -- Well, we plan to use the results of our profiteering price increase to fund new research into improved treatments for toxoplasmosis. 

Oddly enough, it seems a number of infectious disease doctors are questioning this as the existing treatment, which now costs $750 a pill, actually works quite well.

Which leads to two semi-rhetorical questions which I will leave it to the reader to answer for themselves:

Question 1: Hedge fund manager -- good Samaritan or bloodsucking fiend?

Question 2: Capitalism is to health care as a) peanut butter is to jelly, or b) oil is to water?

Don't let the vampire fangs sway your thinking.