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If you haven’t heard about EpiPen’s unconscionable price increases, you have probably been in an ashram. The price of these life-saving medical devices, which are used to quell potentially fatal allergic reactions, has quintupled over the last few years. ... The public outrage is high and growing, and Hillary Clinton has quickly moved to capitalize on it. On Friday, she released a plan to try to stop the prices of this and other generic drugs from suddenly rising to nosebleed levels. ... Is Hillary Clinton’s solution the right one? Sort of. I tend to think that it overcomplicates things. Our health care system already has too many overlapping panels of bureaucrats trying to tweak the market. (Meghan McArdle, 9/2)

When I was a kid in the late 1960s, I suffered from serious asthma attacks. About twice each summer, struggling for air, I received a shot of epinephrine drawn up in a syringe from the camp nurse. The relief was nothing short of miraculous. Today that same tiny, lifesaving bolus of epinephrine — used mostly to treat severe allergic reactions — is delivered via sometimes elaborate devices called auto-injectors. Though the medicine itself hasn’t changed, the delivery devices have been protected by patents, enabling drug makers to charge ever escalating — sometimes prohibitive — prices for one of the oldest drugs in medical use. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 9/2)

That health-care costs are out of control is hardly a surprise. All we have to do is look at our co-pays, out-of-pockets, and insurance premiums. But the recent uproar about the huge spike in the price of the lifesaving device EpiPen shined a light on one of the major reasons medical expenses are surging: the often incredible jumps in drug prices. And that is not going to change anytime soon. (Joel L. Naroff, 9/4)

When I entered the hotel restaurant, I saw a long table covered in china, flatware and wine glasses. So many wine glasses. This was my first experience being courted by a large company. It was early 2013, and because I wrote a blog on food allergies back then, I had been invited to an exclusive, all-expenses-paid trip to New York City. The large company was Mylan and the event at the Strand Hotel was dubbed the Mylan Summit. (Ruth LovettSmith, 9/2)

Congress and the public turned their attention to inflated drug prices. Responding to sudden mass protest and media outrage over this 9-year brewing scandal. Mylan has made moves to assuage the upset by expanding its EpiPen4Schools program. It will increase its discount card from a $100 discount to a $300 discount, expanding its assistance program for families making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, and announcing a generic to be released in the next few weeks at $300, or half price. (Amy Faith Ho, 9/2)

In the complicated world of medicine and money, the federal government relies on a handful of privately run directories to determine which cancer medicines it should pay for, and under which circumstances. Unfortunately, there are some disturbing problems with these compendia, and they need to be fixed — because they’re costing taxpayers and run the risk of harming patients. (Ed Silverman, 9/6)