Drug prices, profits up

A number of NYTimes business articles in the last 10 days have a central motif: the drug companies are profiting mightily at the expense of (1) the Federal Government (2) the elderly and (3) you ‘n me.

“Drug Prices up Sharply this Year” tells how prices spiked soon after Medicare Part D came into effect. Pharma started charging lots more for its drugs: “four times the general inflation rate during the first three months of this year and the largest quarterly price increase in six years.”
Not only that, gentle reader, a windfall in sales came from the switchover of Medicaid drug payments to the new Medicare Part D. With Medicaid, the government could negotiate drug prices with drug companies. With the new Part D, the government is prevented from doing so by law–a gift of the Prez and his Republican Congress.
Today’s headlines were the icing on the cake: “Big Drug Makers Post Profits That Beat Forecasts.” Well, I think any of us could have predicted this.
A somewhat related headline also piques my interest: “Once an Enemy Health Care Industry Warms to Clinton.” Hmmmm. What the drugs companies do for Bush’s coffers will be done by the health care industry for Sen. Clinton. Caveat voter.

Language, language …

Hitting the liberal blogs today, I notice the indiscriminate use of the designation, “Intelligent Design.”  I feel that this term should never be capitalized nor given the status of a real theory.  It belongs in lower case, always (like alien abduction, an equally plausible hypothesis).    And while I’m at it, what the hell is “faith-based?’”  It’s just a right-wing, obfuscating synonym for “religious.”  The right has also given us “partial birth” abortion when “late term” is perfectly adequate and more descriptive.   And there’s the hypocritical, PR expression, “pro-life.”  Yeah, sure, they’re pro-life, exept maybe for death by lethal injection or by mortar fire.  These guys are pro-death, plain and simple.

Even abortion rights activists have resorted to this euphemizing with “pro-choice.”  Call it pro-abortion and be proud of it.

Health insurance dough to Hillary Clinton–what’s it buying?

According to today’s Times, Hillary Clinton is raking in money from the health care industry including insurance companies.  It’s probably their insurance against Hillary doing anything rash in case she becomes president in 2008.  In Clinton’s last foray into health care, she managed to inflame the insurance industry–remember Harry and Louise? Now insurance money is filling her coffers.  Does that mean we  can reasonably assure that Hillary’s plans for Universal Health Care, if any,  will be firmly centered in health insurance–like the Massachusetts plan? It’s something, but not enough and damned inefficient.  It’s 100 or 1000 payers rather than one.

National Health Care Mythology

Our present health care (non) system is a mess. A national health care system would clean it up, provide good health care to ALL Americans, and be cost-efficient. Dr. Marcia Angell debunks some myths about a single-payer system here (Rep. John Conyers’s website) To paraphrase:

1. We’ll need to ration care. NO. A one-payer system is much more efficient than the current hodge podge of private insurance and public assistance shemes.
2. There will be long waiting lists for operations and procedures. NO. We don’t wait now; we won’t wait then.
3. It’s socialized medicine. No more socialized than Medicare is now. We’d still use private providers.
4.The Government would louse it up. NO. Do they louse up NASA, the NIH, the CDC, the VA? The Government answers to you and me. Besides it would be the payer not the doer of health care in a nationalized system. Ask your Grandma.

Bt or not Bt…that’s the question

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on the side of agribusiness. I’m all for slow food and small farms. But let’s call a spade a spade when it comes to biotech food. Agribusiness uses it to maximise profits–in some insidious ways, too, like preventing farmers from collecting seeds from one harvest to plant the next year. But is biotech food dangerous to our health or the health of the enviornment? Probably less so than some environmental groups would want us to believe. Let’s call Monsanto on what it is: big, greedy, capitalistic. But let’s not squander our fight on the wrong things. Here’s a rational Q&A on Bt corn.

This just out: careful with those Tylenols, gentle viewers

I usually ignore the pharma ads that sprout out of the national broadcast news, but yesterday a new voice caught my attention. She was gently cautioning viewers not to take too much of our favorite medicines. More ain’t better was the gist of it, and she ended by telling us not to take 2 when 1 is enough. Message brought to us by Tylenol. What the…? Turns out a new study, reported here by AP, shows that Tylenol can cause liver problems. About 8 extra-strength a day can do damage. Impeccable timing, Tylenol ad lady.

Genetically Modified Fools?

Nobel laureate (physiology and medicine) Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard  made a telling offhand remark in an interview published in the New York Times Science section today.  Of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and a PhD physicist, Nüsslein-Volhard said this: “I am happy that she is there because she understands science outside of ideology. In the Green Party and … the Socialist Party, there are people who are anti-science. They are against genetically modified foods…. She sees through it, and maybe this will help.”  Her impliction is clear. Arguments against GM foods may perhaps be driven more by ideology than by science. More on this later.

Independence Day 2006

It’s difficult to comment on this day without sounding corny. But it’s pretty mind-bending that a group of men had it in them to challenge the greatest power in the world. They felt that Britain was robbing them of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; it was time to break free. Britain–the superpower of its day–had the wealth, the lands (most of it not their own), the grandest armada in the world, the armies, the navies, the shekels, everything. It would be like the State of Arizona or Rhode Island challenging the US today. Not that it couldn’t do with a little challenging, but that’s for another post.

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