Healthcare going forward

[gsdx]

^ I wonder if the 1% is tired of all the winning yet?

The other 99% are still waiting for the winning to start.

 

[Benvolio]

^ I wonder if the 1% is tired of all the winning yet?

The other 99% are still waiting for the winning to start.

The winning has started as Trump is keeping many of the promises which induced them to vote for him: end Nafta, end obamacare, end Paris accord, limit immigration, build the wall, tax cut etc. Do delude yourself into thinking that 99% percent of Americans are poor. We still have about the highest median income in the world.

 

[ballcaphair]

^ I wonder if the 1% is tired of all the winning yet?

The other 99% are still waiting for the winning to start.

Redistribution of wealth is a one way street --- Upwards. This president and his party are not Conservative; they are thieves.

 

[Benvolio]

Redistribution of wealth is a one way street --- Upwards. This president and his party are not Conservative; they are thieves.

Nonsense.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Insurance of preexisting illnesses does not work.

Some people cannot afford them, but they are not hurt; they are just where they would have been without the research.

These have to be some of the most cruel, heartless statements you have ever made.

If you have a medical condition then fuck you. Be sick and die. You're uninsurable.
If you have a medical condition and you can't afford the treatment or drug then fuck you. Be sick and die. Yes, denying treatment hurts people.

You are just un-fucking believable.
All you care about is money. You have no concern for people whatsoever.

 

[frankfrank]

ACA is not perfect, but as long as he refers to it as Obamacare, it will be something he and "his base" will hate. His winning is disabling, cruel and ugly.

Yeah, after all, it was spearheaded by somebody who he HATES. He has never-ending vendettas of revenge against those who he doesn't like, or who he feels disrespected him.

He will delight in seeing poor people die in the streets from neglect. If there was any doubt about this, the tepid actions to "help" Puerto Rico (which is largely inhabited by those "icky brown people") tells us a lot.

Except that he and the Republicans in Congress promised to end and Obamacare. You should respect a president who keeps his promises, and in 2020, he is going to be able to remind the voters that he kept his promises when those about him did not.

He also promised to replace it with something better, and that's not even close to happening with what he's trying to do.

He also promised tax cuts to ordinary families, and all he's trying to do is to slash taxes on the rich (including himself), while taxes on people WHO ACTUALLY WORK and do labor will increase.

Did I correctly hear somewhere, last week, that his tax plan would end things such as the personal exemption, deduction of mortgage interest, writing off state and local taxes, etc.?

Neverthelessless, he is doing what he promised, which is how democracy is supposed to work.

Democracy isn't supposed to be entirely beholden to the evangelical Christians, either.

 

[Benvolio]

These have to be some of the most cruel, heartless statements you have ever made.

If you have a medical condition then fuck you. Be sick and die. You're uninsurable.
If you have a medical condition and you can't afford the treatment or drug then fuck you. Be sick and die. Yes, denying treatment hurts people.

You are just un-fucking believable.
All you care about is money. You have no concern for people whatsoever.

Wrong. I am more logical than you. We should not impede the research and production of new drugs because some people cannot afford them. We should not deprive drug companies of the profits they need to do R&D because some people cannot afford them.
Insuring preexisting illnesses does not work because it is like insuring houses that are already on fire.

 

[gsdx]

Wrong. I am more logical than you. We should not impede the research and production of new drugs because some people cannot afford them. We should not deprive drug companies of the profits they need to do R&D because some people cannot afford them.

Question. Why do drug companies need $800,000,000 profits when they spend only $7,000,000 on R&D? Hell, they bribe the government with more than what they spend on R&D.

You have never been able to answer that question, and you can't, because there is no justification for it.

 

[KaraBulut]

...You have never been able to answer that question, and you can't, because there is no justification for it.

Just to add to this... there's an underlying assumption in his latest post trying to justify pharmaceutical prices: that the pharmaceutical industry is cranking out new life-saving drugs. If you look at the new releases from the industry, almost all of the new drugs have two things in common:

1. The new drugs are just variations on drugs that are already on the market. A new SSRI. A new biologic. A new ACE inhibitor.
2. A lot of the new breakthrough drugs come either from academic research in universities or from research being done in other countries.

Very few of the drugs being released can even claim to be significant improvements to drugs that are already on the market.

The new drugs that the pharmaceutical industry is focusing on are drugs that do not cure- they treat symptoms. If you cure a disease with a drug, the person no longer needs the drug. If you give them a drug to manage symptoms, then you have a long-term, repeat customer.

Many of the drugs that are being put on the market in the US aren't needed. They're just attempts for drug companies to have an offering to compete with other drug companies. Of the nearly 100 new brand name drugs that have been released in 2017, the FDA listed only about 30 of them as being "novel" and even among the "novel" drugs, many were either new combinations of existing drugs or were just new variations on an existing biological.

The R&D could have been directed toward things like drugs that prevent illness, new antibiotics to cure infections or new immune modulators to inhibit cancer.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Wrong. I am more logical than you. We should not impede the research and production of new drugs because some people cannot afford them. We should not deprive drug companies of the profits they need to do R&D because some people cannot afford them.
Insuring preexisting illnesses does not work because it is like insuring houses that are already on fire.

Thank you for confirming my premise. "All you care about is money. You have no concern for people whatsoever."

 

[gsdx]

Many of the drugs that are being put on the market in the US aren't needed.

And many, many of them end up in lawsuits in a year or so where they have to pay a few million in damages, usually more than was spent on R&D and advertising combined, but it still leaves them with a few thousand victims and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

There is a programme on the Discovery Channel here. I don't know if it's available in other countries. There have been a number of episodes in which plane crashes had taken the lives of thousands of people, yet they could been prevented by a simple 'fix'. However, the airlines had determined that it was cheaper to pay off the lawsuits than to fix their planes.

That sounds very much like what the drug companies are doing.

 

[ballcaphair]

And many, many of them end up in lawsuits in a year or so where they have to pay a few million in damages, usually more than was spent on R&D and advertising combined, but it still leaves them with a few thousand victims and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

There is a programme on the Discovery Channel here. I don't know if it's available in other countries. There have been a number of episodes in which plane crashes had taken the lives of thousands of people, yet they could been prevented by a simple 'fix'. However, the airlines had determined that it was cheaper to pay off the lawsuits than to fix their planes.

That sounds very much like what the drug companies are doing.

Yes, the elephant in the room is side effects. The laundry list of "effects may include:" are a way to turn users into one big beta test. Often the side effects are a horrible and dangerous condition. One of the primary questions on intake is, "are you on any medications?" One case in ER was actually a side effect. We learn the hard way.

 

[gsdx]

^ I keep thinking of the 'heartburn' drugs that you have to take every day and are probably very expensive. I know of two of them which are in class-action lawsuits. I keep thinking of how cheap a box of baking soda or Alka Seltzer is and how much instant relief you get with no side-effects whatsoever. Why fork out big bucks for you have to take every day?

 

[Benvolio]

^ I keep thinking of the 'heartburn' drugs that you have to take every day and are probably very expensive. I know of two of them which are in class-action lawsuits. I keep thinking of how cheap a box of baking soda or Alka Seltzer is and how much instant relief you get with no side-effects whatsoever. Why fork out big bucks for you have to take every day?

The generic omeprozole cost 64 cents a tablet on Amazon, and I cut them in half to get 24 hr freedom from heart burn. Well worth it as any one who has the problem will agree.

 

[ballcaphair]

The generic omeprozole cost 64 cents a tablet on Amazon, and I cut them in half to get 24 hr freedom from heart burn. Well worth it as any one who has the problem will agree.

You've found a solution and sincere congratulations. A cost effective remedy. That is all my clinic wants.

 

[KaraBulut]

^ I keep thinking of the 'heartburn' drugs that you have to take every day and are probably very expensive. I know of two of them which are in class-action lawsuits...

The generic omeprozole cost 64 cents a tablet on Amazon...

Omeprazole is a good example of a drug that may eventually be pulled from the market because of the injury that it has caused on some patients taking it. The drug is associated with increased risk of osteoporosis. Research shows that a small number of people have developed lethal pancreatitis while taking the drug. There's also increasing research that suggests that elderly patients can develop kidney damage or kidney failure from taking the drug.

And many, many of them end up in lawsuits in a year or so where they have to pay a few million in damages, usually more than was spent on R&D and advertising combined, but it still leaves them with a few thousand victims and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit...

Honestly, it's the least of their sins.

We've known for a while that the pharmaceutical marketing machine turned its focus on marketing opioid drugs in the late 90s. Part of their campaign was to convince healthcare professionals that we were undertreating pain and that opiates wouldn't cause addition in patients who were in pain.
Twenty years later, we have an addiction crisis that was fueled by the drug companies' efforts to get prescribers to write more prescriptions for opiate pain medications.

When the DEA cracked down on the companies who were manufacturing and distributing the opioids, a lawyer for the drug companies wrote a bill to take away the DEA's ability to pursue the drug companies, the Republican Congress passed the bill with unanimous consent from the Democrats and Obama signed the bill into law.

The bill was called the "Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act". Most members of Congress probably never read the bill and they just assumed from the name that it was a good thing.

Washington Post and 60 Minutes just did a story on how this law got passed.

The Republican Congressman who got the bill passed is Tom Marino. Marino is Trump's nominee for the federal Drug Czar position.

The other Republican to helped push the bill that the pharmaceutical industry wrote to remove the DEA's ability to stop them from dumping millions of opiate drugs on the market is Marsha Blackburn. Rep Blackburn has a long list of similar legislative sins. She's planning on next running for US Senator.

The pharmaceutical industry wants us all to believe that Americans pay more for drugs because of R&D costs and because of lawsuits. The truth about why drugs are so expensive in the US is tightly connected to lobbying and the amount of money that the industry showers on politicians from both the Republican and Democratic party. Their latest tactic is to neuter the Federal agencies that regulate the pharmaceutical industry by getting "small government Republicans" to propose bills that take away regulatory powers or the ability to negotiate prices.

Both Rep Blackburn's and Rep Marino's districts have been hard hit by the opioid crisis that is killing thousands of Americans. So, ask yourself, "If these Congresspeople aren't representing the needs of their constituents, who is it exactly that they are representing?"

Other articles:
Did President Obama know bill would strip DEA of power?
Rep. Tom Marino: Drug czar nominee and the opioid industry’s advocate in Congress

 

[Benvolio]

At one time An endoscopy showed some precancerous change in my esophagus--Barretts--and for that reason, my doctor has advised that I continue with the omeprazole. I am aware of the potential side effects an for that reason cut them in half which is enough to eliminate the heart burn. I have tried going without or suing Zantac and similar drugs without success.

 

[ballcaphair]

At one time An endoscopy showed some precancerous change in my esophagus--Barretts--and for that reason, my doctor has advised that I continue with the omeprazole. I am aware of the potential side effects an for that reason cut them in half which is enough to eliminate the heart burn. I have tried going without or suing Zantac and similar drugs without success.

You've lost me on this one. The last sentence confounds me.

 

[gsdx]

Cellphone - Necessity or luxury?
Car - Necessity or luxury?
Big-screen TV - Necessity or luxury?
Food - Necessity or luxury?
Prescription drugs - Necessity or luxury?

 

[Benvolio]

You've lost me on this one. The last sentence confounds me.

Oops. Should read "tried ...using Zantac"