(NaturalNews) The longer Obamacare remains in effect, the more it fails, and a total meltdown of the law – and the healthcare system it seeks to "manage" – is inevitable. The only thing left to chance at this point is how many millions of Americans will be impacted when it does.

As reported by Zero Hedge, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical firm was recently forced to defend her company's major drug price increases from attacks by Congress and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, stating that the reasoning is clear: The U.S. healthcare system is in "crisis."

Big Pharma firm Mylan and its CEO, Heather Bresch, are being touted as "greedy" examples of pharmaceutical corporatism, though it is not the company's fault it is a de facto monopoly and has limitless pricing ability. This week, however, the maker of the EpiPen announced plans to increase access to its EpiPen Auto-Injector through the expansion of an existing program for patients facing higher out-of-pocket costs (which is happening to more and more Americans with each passing year). Mylan will reduce EpiPen costs via use of a savings card that covers up to $300 for the EpiPen 2-Pak.

"We recognize the significant burden on patients from continued, rising insurance premiums and being forced increasingly to pay the full list price for medicines at the pharmacy counter," Bresch said in a statement, as Zero Hedge reported. "Patients deserve increased price transparency and affordable care, particularly as the system shifts significant costs to them."
 

'Only in healthcare'

Bresch, whose compensation has risen some 671 percent since 2007 to $18.9 million annually, then appeared on CNBC to note that corporate profitability is an issue, and her company's price hikes are not just limited to EpiPen. The price for Ursodiol, used to dissolve gallstones, rose 542 percent; Metoclopramide, used short-term for heartburn, 444 percent; and Dicyclomine, a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, 400 percent.

But she further noted that price was just one part of the equation Mylan must address. "All involved must also take steps to meaningfully address the U.S. healthcare crisis," she said, adding that her company is more than willing to do its part to "drive change," along with healthcare professionals, patients and lawmakers.

In other words, she appears to be saying that the company is partially to blame, but so is the system in which her company must operate.

In her interview with CNBC, she said that the healthcare system is in crisis, which has led to patients paying full retail prices for drugs, while their health insurance premiums are skyrocketing. "Only in healthcare," she said, could someone pay $25 at a pharmacy one day and pay $600-$2,000 for the same drug the next.

"No one's more frustrated than me," Bresch said, before issuing this warning, which went straight to the heart of the problem: The U.S. system is broken – which is what permitted Mylan to charge as much as it did in the first place.

"My frustration is, the list price is $608" for the EpiPen 2-pak, but that's because "there is a system" whereby pharmaceutical products must go through four or five companies before it ever reaches the pharmacy, each of which take a share of the profit.