“Pure and Deadly Greed”: Lawmakers Slam Pfizer's 400% Price Hike on COVID Shots
Freeman writes:
Senators Warren and Welch urged Pfizer to back down from "unseemly profiteering":
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senator-elect Peter Welch (D-Vt.) sent a scathing letter to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla this week over the company's plan to increase the price of its COVID-19 vaccines by 400 percent next year when it enters the commercial market.
"We urge you to back off from your proposed price increases and ensure COVID-19 vaccines are reasonably priced and accessible to people across the United States," they wrote, while also requesting information about the company's revenue and profits.
In October, Pfizer revealed plans to sell its COVID-19 vaccine from somewhere between $110 and $130 next year. Most recently, the US government paid only about $30 per dose.
The planned price hike is higher than the $50 price point that some financial analysts had expected Pfizer would set upon entry to the commercial market. It's a whopping 10,000 percent markup from the vaccine's estimated cost of manufacturing.
[...] In a news event last month, Bourla drew criticism for saying that the company's COVID-19 vaccine would remain "free to all Americans" despite the price hike, because health insurance companies would cover the vaccination, leading to no out-of-pocket costs. However, such cost increases to health care lead to increasing insurance premiums, which get taken out of workers' paychecks. Moreover, Bourla didn't address the cost for uninsured people, who currently have free access to the vaccines.
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