You may have wondered why the EpiPen costs $600 while the ingredients in the simple injection device cost less than $1. It is due to the oligarchical control of every layer of the healthcare industry. This post is excerpted from The Saker post linked here and is based on a paper by the Awara Accounting (source)

Almost everyone here on PP is aware of the mechanism of Regulatory Capture (where an industry gets “its people” assigned to the government agency that regulates that same industry).

We are also familiar with the situation where a single investment corporation owns two competitors. The result is that true competition ceases.

And we are familiar with laws that limit competition, such as the Bush era law that prohibits Medicare from seeking competitive pricing (something done in every other western nation).

So here is a new one: Horizontal Shareholding which masks the concentration of power (oligarchic control) from the casual observer.

Horizontal Shareholding

Horizontal shareholding is a way that a single clan of oligarchic investors conceal their consolidated control. For example, Vanguard and BlackRock are the two leading investors in almost every layer of the healthcare system (hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, pharmacy benefits managers, retail pharmacies, physician groups, etc).

But Vanguard’s major investor is BlackRock.

And BlackRock’s major investor is Vanguard.

Poster Comment:

CEO of Black Rock is Larry Fink.