Tuesday, June 8, 2021

A.G. Sues Over Insulin Prices

 Attorney General Lynn Fitch issued the following statement. 

Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed a lawsuit yesterday at the Chancery Court of Hinds County against drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers (“PBMs”) working in tandem to manipulate and inflate insulin prices.

“As the mother of a diabetic, I know the emotional, physical, and financial toll the unconscionable price of insulin has on families,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “I filed this lawsuit on behalf of every Mississippian who relies on this medication to survive. These companies are exploiting the vulnerable. I’m fighting back because you should never have to decide between paying the ever-increasing price of insulin or compromising your care.”

The complaint states, “Mississippi has the highest prevalence of diabetes in the United States with 13.6%   of its population – over 400,000 people – living with diabetes… Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, and lower limb amputations and is the seventh leading cause of death in Mississippi despite the availability of effective treatment. Over 22% of all hospitalizations in Mississippi are attributable to diabetes.”

The total estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes in Mississippi is $3.5 billion, with one in four health care dollars spent caring for people with diabetes.

Over the course of the last decade, these companies have raised the reported prices of their respective diabetes drugs up to 1,000 percent, down to the decimal point within a few days of each other.   Even though, over the last fifteen years, the cost of producing these drugs has actually decreased, a diabetic in 2016 spent, on average, $5,705 for insulin needed to survive.

Attorney General Fitch alleges that the reason behind the increase is a fraudulent conspiracy between billion-dollar companies known as PBMs and the Manufacturer Defendants.

In their “Insulin Pricing Scheme,” the Manufacturer Defendants artificially and willingly raise their reported prices, and then deceptively refund a significant portion of that price back to PBMs through things called rebates, discounts, credits, and administration fees. They also switch medications within their formularies to suit their pricing scheme to the detriment of diabetics relying on those drugs.

This practice has resulted in record profits for Defendants at the expense of diabetics and payors, such as the State of Mississippi, who have been overcharged millions of dollars a year for egregiously inflated diabetes medications.

The complaint alleges violations of the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act  for unfair and deceptive practices as well as unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy. These excessive prices cause some diabetics in Mississippi to ration or underdose their insulin, inject expired insulin, re-use needles, and starve themselves to control their blood sugar to use as little insulin as possible. This compromise in care is extremely dangerous and can lead to serious complications or,
in some cases, death.

With this lawsuit, Attorney General Lynn Fitch seeks to hold the Defendants accountable, to protect the health and well-being of the hundreds of thousands of diabetic Mississippians, and to protect the economic interests of the State.


14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Post a copy of complaint?

Anonymous said...

which campaign donor firm got that one?

Anonymous said...

Unless there is a tape, email or other evidence, this is going to be hard to prove. Every company looks at what the competition is doing and if there are just a few players maybe they have the discipline to not have a price war. If they are smart enough to signal in the open market using their prices - and not have private correspondence - there won't be anything illegal about it.

Anonymous said...

Free shots for Covid.... hmmmmmm

Anonymous said...

November 8, 2022

Anonymous said...

Good for Lynn Fitch. I am not necessarily a fan but this could be huge.

I am a Type 1 diabetic who takes insulin. I have good insurance, so the cost to me is no big deal. But, I have been interested in this situation for some time ever since I learned that a box of Novolog that I pay less than $20 for has a "list" price of $500 - $700. Insulin was developed about 90 years ago so all of it should have been "generic" by the start of WWII. As the Fitch lawsuit says, the price of insulin has gone up 1000 percent in the last 10 years, even though they can prove the cost to produce insulin has gone down. If this was a regular consumer product, I would say don't buy it if you think the price is too high. But insulin is a life or death drug: you have it, you live and if you don't you die. There is a recent case of a 26 year old diabetic man who did not have insurance or a job where he could afford insulin in the amount he needed. So, he died.

What is incredible is that a possible solution is easy: advertise the price of drugs. It is not illegal to do so but it is not required and drug companies claim that requiring them to disclose price is a violation of their 1st amendment rights. The Trump administration tried to force drug companies to disclose prices (in one of his true efforts to fight the swamp). But, proving that big pharma has spread the dollars everywhere, the judge not only ruled against Trump, she lectured his administration for even bringing this up. Here is the story from Forbes:

https://fortune.com/2020/06/18/prescription-drug-prices-tv-ads/

This story should merit national attention. But, the next time you see those 3 minute ads about some new drug you didn't know you need, realize those represent billions of dollars in revenue for TV networks and you'll understand why it does not. Again, big pharma has spread so much money around no politician is talking about this. They argue about Medicare expansion, but that is just about who will send drug companies the money not in reducing costs. Democrats want Medicaid to negotiate directly with drug companies on price, but that doesn't let you know what the price is. Republicans just oppose Nancy Pelosi without saying what they would do. There is a bill in the U.S. Senate (bipartisan too!) to disclose prices, but its future is "unclear."

The Fitch lawsuit will be really interesting. Clearly she is doing this because she was tired of paying diabetes bills for her daughter. Maybe that will spur real change. If this goes away, check her campaign contributions disclosures.

Anonymous said...

Where is link to complaint?

Anonymous said...

Fantastic post, 2:58! I agree with every word.

I won't be allowed to say too much on the subject, but please look into Ketogenic diets and Time-restricted Eating (aka Intermittent Fasting). I can't say specifically HOW, but this might help enormously with what you're facing. I speak from experience.

Lemuria has a (barely) decent selection of books on the subject, and YouTube offers more-than-enough, for free. (you're smart enough to distinguish between the hucksters and the legitimate Keto docs).

Anonymous said...

Why won’t anyone send a link to the complaint?????

Kingfish said...

Because it will cost $20 to download the complaint. There is no link to it in MEC. I've asked the AG's communications director for a copy but of course, he hasn't even acknowledged my request. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

We need a lot more pro-competition anti-trust activity in this country. COVID has helped expose very serious issues in our supply chain, where only a few mega companies are dominating and controlling an entire industry, to the point that they are essentially setting prices.

Lumber prices are sky high, but timber growers aren't making any more money than they were decades ago. A couple of the mega wood processors are setting market prices for both growers and retailers.

Meat prices are going sky high, but beef, pork, and poultry growers aren't making much more money than in the past. Several major meat processors are setting market meat prices for both growers and retailers.

Google, Facebook, and Twitter control a huge portion of the information available on the internet. They censor and control what information they will allow to be disseminated to the global public.

This is dangerous and it's getting worse. Politicians IN BOTH PARTIES have been in bed with Big Business for far too long, and the two groups are working in concert to exert more and more control over the people. The pharma industry is another prime offender. Insulin is one example, epi-pens have been another. It's unconscionable and it's not going to change until we demand action and follow through.

Anonymous said...

I never got my $3.00 pro rata portion from the last law suit the Ms. attorney general won for me. By the way, why did the MP and L lawsuit go away when we elected a new Attorney General? Apparently, while the state was paying to defend that suit, the sky was the limit. You had MP and L (whose fees are regulated by the state) being sued by the attorney general. A number of Mississippi lawyers got rich on that one. To her credit, Fitch eliminated that Ponzi scheme.

Anonymous said...

Amen 2:58 I would not listen to 5:10 especially if your a type 1, none of that stuff works. Doctors would never recommend it . If your a type 2 in a lot of cases weight & edit management and can help.

Anonymous said...

Pandering to the emotional crowd with "I'm the mother of..."

Her personal circumstance is totally irrelevant to the mission and duty of an elected official. Reminds me of Dogbart's repetitive use of his office to rattle on about autism.


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