Posted on 11/29/2004 11:51:02 AM PST by softengine
Union bosses like Feldman and screeching harpies like Weingarten and HRC soak up all of the publicity, while truly innovative, brilliant thinkers like Heather McDonald and Peter Brimelow are almost universally ignored by the liberal, mainstream press corps.
Thanks..I thought my attempt at satire was self-evident..obvious not.. I shall endeavour to work on it....
Sorry...I guess I missed it. LOL
Now that you mention it, it's pretty obvious.
THWACK!! (smacking myself upside the head)
Also, when they can get away with it, they tell the manufacturer that they're going to sell at a set price or the Canadian government will open a factory and make the drug themselves.
It's not just Canada...there are several countries that are pulling this same blackmail. Consequently, the price Americans pay for many drugs is artificially high: essentially we subsidize the drug costs of socialized medicine countries that are underselling drugs to their own populace.
bump!
I didn't catch the authors name, but if you want the phone# Freepmail me.
What we have in medicine is a duplicate of what we have in the school systems; the union is in charge of the system (AMA) and the AMA is run by the pharmaceutical companies for the parmaceutical companies as is the FDA.
Wake up and prove truth whether it comes from a gutter (Moore) or a castle. Even God used a jackass to turn a bigot into a treasure.
The one sure way to make sure drugs don't get to the people who truly need them is for the government to impose price controls.
I might actually feel sorry for the pharmaceutical industry if it was not for the fact that they charge us U.S. citizens triple the price for their drugs that they charge the rest of the world for.
Examples:
Rent control -----> Greedy landlords.
Gas price control -----> "Big Oil" "Seven Sisters"
The drug companies also get into bed with and use the government. if they want to stop dying by the sword, they should stop living by the sword.
Hmm...
I wonder when it's going to expire.
Dr. John Abramson has written a new book, "Overdosed America". He's a family doc who has seen plenty. He covers the cozy relationship between drug cos. and the FDA and docs and drug cos. He says 70% of our medical problems are preventable by diet, exercise and other lifestyle choices. I know a lady who was on 14 prescription medications (28 pills daily). She was a zombie. I helped her get on a nutrition program and she is now drug-free and living a full life again. Drugs are wonderful in some limited circumstances, but they are way over-prescribed and causing many problems.
And price controls ALWAYS hurt the poor. Just how many poor people can afford to live in NYC or SF?
Yeah--have heard this before. EEEEEvil pharmaceudicals. EEEEEvil hospitals. EEEEvil doctors. Vitamins, etc. Granny Goodwitch. Earth Mommies. Brother Moon. Take a vitamin or wholesome unstandardized herbs when the chest pains start? Well, that's your business. When the chest pains start, I'm hightailing it to the ER, and when a simple med saves me both from death and crippling--I'll kiss the feet of the pharm industry. You can have your vitamins....
Some of the commie stuff I read about pharma is nuts. Pharma is 15% of the healthcare dollar. The rest is hospitals, doctors, services, etc. The US gov't needs to get off it's ass and get on the backs of these socialist countries not paying their share of the drug bill. It amounts to an unfair subsidy to them and its being put on the backs of US citizens. Otherwise, the commies in the USA are going to try get the gov't into the pharma business. If people think things are bad now, just wait 'til that happens. We'll go from expensive drugs to no drugs at all. We'll have drugs for AIDS or drugs for hispanics or blacks or whichever political group the politicians want votes from. Or, the gov't can just put us all on drugs and we won't need to vote since we'll be too stoned to make decisions. The suggestion that gov't should take over developement of drugs is moronic.
Not only are pharms a small % of healthcare, so are docs. Yet, everyone refers to their hospital bills as "doctors' bills."
What costs is that infrastructure and its maintenance--that fragile thing called a hospital. All that junk and its upkeep and its technicians.
I had 2 surgeries last year. I don't know what I would have done without the medication and everything from IVs to in-line tubing, medicine pumps, blood transfusions. All of it. I was only in the hospital for a couple days. I had a wonderful doctor, the hospital took good care of me and they didn't kill me, and if it weren't for the technology, I would have been in the hospital a lot longer than I was. Now I'm healthier than I've been in years.
What % of medical costs come from lawsuit protection - like insurance premiums and "defensive medicine"?
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