Over the past nine years, Medicare spending on EpiPens has increased by 1,151 percent, even though the total number of EpiPen users has grown by 164 percent.
The findings from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation comes amid widespread anger over a 400 percent price hike for the allergy drug from 2007, the year that generic maker Mylan acquired it. The data comes a day before a major hearing of the House Oversight Committee that is expected to include testimony from Mylan CEO Heather Bresch.
Since 2007, average spending per EpiPen prescriptions from Medicare Part D, the entitlement program’s prescription drug plan, increased from $71 in 2007 to $344, a 383 percent increase.
Overall, Medicare Part D spent $7 million on EpiPens in 2007, a figure that rose by 1,151 percent to $87.9 million in 2014, Kaiser said.
The massive spending boost far outpaces the increased usage of the EpiPen. Nearly 80,000 Part D enrollees used an EpiPen in 2007 and that figure increased to more than 211,000 in 2014, only a 164 percent bump, Kaiser found.
EpiPen spending also outpaced annual growth in Medicare Part D spending. In 2008, for example, Part D spending on EpiPen increased by 7.4 percent from the year before, but total Part D spending only increased by 2 percent.
In 2014, EpiPen spending grew by 34 percent from 2013, but Part D per capita spending rose only 8.6 percent, Kaiser said.
Kaiser did say that the spending totals don’t reflect rebates provided by drug makers to lower the costs to Medicare. The rebates were not included in the analysis because they are not disclosed, Kaiser said.
