<p>Fountain, don’t forget that we hate elderly people and want to deprive them of their prescription drugs.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s true, you do that, too. But you’ve been doing that for a long time.</p>
<p>Hey Zoos: don’t feel bad. At least you don’t believe that equality is better than freedom, and that you gain human capital commensurate to your victimization. People like that are really losers! And I’m pretty sure there’s lots of them. In fact I know a guy who’s got a list…</p>
<p>“Fountain, don’t forget that we hate elderly people and want to deprive them of their prescription drugs.”</p>
<p>So this is how you do it. You see, about four blocks from my office the buses gather to pick up folks going to Canada to get their prescriptions. Takes about 4 1/2 hours each way. </p>
<p>Most of them are not the actual users of the prescription drugs themselves, but are the relatives and friends of those who are. They will have a relative who is in excruciating pain. The elderly person will have spent down to the “donut hole” in the conservatives’ prescription drug plan. They are otherwise destitute. The doctor gives them a prescription for pain meds. But because the conservatives prevented the government from negotiating the price, the expense is way more than they can afford. (My wife deals with these folks all the time.) Now it is true that if they “spent through” the donut hole, they’d be covered on the other side, but they don’t have it to spend. And so they lie in excruciating pain, often dying, while drug companies get rich, and conservatives pat themselves on the back. And so their relatives and friends get on the bus. In some places around here, the muncipality actually pays for the bus. </p>
<p>But, it should be noted, that while the conservatives wanted to deprive the elderly of their prescription drugs, it hasn’t entirely worked. Canada beckons. And if you can’t get a bus there, you can always try the Internet. The FDA and DEA have stopped trying to “patrol the border” to prevent these medicines from getting through.</p>
<p>In case you wanted more specific economic detail of how conservatives hate the elderly and sought to deprive of them of prescription drugs, here tis:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cepr.net/publications/part_d_drug_profits_2006_08.pdf#search=“donut%20hole%20prescription%20drug”[/url]”>http://www.cepr.net/publications/part_d_drug_profits_2006_08.pdf#search=“donut%20hole%20prescription%20drug”</a></p>
<p>
Mini, you almost never make sense to me, and I’m really not stupid. </p>
<p>What is it that you want? Socialism? Should drug companies be owned by the state so that everything is free? Where then is the incentive to develop new drugs? </p>
<p>Finally, families SHOULD be taking care of their elderly relatives!!! One of the problems I see is that people are just living these independent lives – families don’t help with child care, elder care, advocate for sick relatives etc. There seems to be this American perspective that the government should do it all. In my parents’ culture, families took care of their parents and grandparents. At the moment, our kids’ only grandparent is still able to live independently. But if that ever changes, we will take care of him. That’s what families are for.</p>
<p>SJ, I couldn’t agree with you more, but that independence is THE American way. Americans only think of themselves, in their myopic little worlds. One would be hard pressed to have them (most of them, us, whatever) step out of their self absorbed worlds to care for anyone else…even a member of their own family.</p>
<p>I know that sounds cynical, but this American individualism, which was once a good thing, has evolved into American selfishness, which isn’t.</p>
<p>“Finally, families SHOULD be taking care of their elderly relatives!!!”</p>
<p>THEY ARE! Those are the folks getting on the bus, remember? because the conservatives care more about drug company profits than they do about providing prescription drugs to the elderly. The cost - to conservative taxpayers, and all taxpayers as the paper I linked noted - would be the same either way, but conservatives chose freely to favor drug companies over elderly people in pain and the relatives and families who are trying to care for them.</p>
<p>So given the choice between enabling the elderly to BUY prescription drugs or subsidize drug company profits (“none of the above” was not one of the options offered), the conservatives chose drug company profits. </p>
<p>So what else is new?</p>
<p>From the CBC <a href=“http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/[/url]”>http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So, Medicare Part D IS helping older Americans, since it’s cutting into Canadian pharmacies’ profits.</p>
<p>Canadian drugs are cheaper, in part, because of the exchange rate.</p>
<p>Canadian companies do not waste money on marketing directly to the consumer.</p>
<p>Canadian companies are heavily regulated. I like regulation as much as the next guy, but I think it squashes innovation when it’s applied to excess.</p>
<p>WHO IS DOING THE RESEARCH? American companies are developing these products, and they can’t do it for free. </p>
<p>Just in case you are tempted to wax on about how wonderful the Canadian medical system is, I’ll point out that we lived in British Columbia for three years as expatriates. I loved it! It was a very comfortable place for me, given its close ties with Britain and Ireland. But when my husband needed surgery, he was told it would take 8 - 12 months to schedule it, since it wasn’t an emergency. We, like many affluent Canadians, were able to have the procedure done in an outstanding facility in Seattle. Regular Canadians don’t have that option.</p>
<p>This doesn’t have anything to do with Canadian drug companies. It has to do with conservatives freely choosing to subsidize - that is, remove from the free market, and subsidize - drug company profits at the expense of the elderly. And not any elderly, but elderly who have already spent $2,500 a year on prescription drugs and now fall into the “donut hole”. It would have cost the same either way, but we know which side of the line conservatives stand. Anti “free market” (doesn’t exist anyway); pro-drug company.</p>
<p>True. I live in a border state. We have experience of the Canadian system. Canadians have experience of ours. 86% of Canadians say they prefer theirs. 70% of Washingtonians say we prefer theirs.</p>
<p>My daughter waited NINE months for proper surgery on her knee last year, which we were only able to access by changing insurance companies. She too, finally, got excellent care in Seattle. Don’t tell me about wait times.</p>
<p>But this isn’t about Canada. This is about conservatives wanting and actively withholding prescription drugs from the elderly. And they did. We just happen to be lucky that folks can get on a bus (at least some of the time) and get what can help them withstand excruciating pain.</p>
<p>
and what are the wait times for 46 million uninsured Americans?</p>
<p>Hey, I had PLENTY of insurance. But ended up paying for all the initial exams out of pocket, and daughter had the surgery the very day our new insurance took effect.</p>
<p>I’m still trying to figure out how the exchange rate affects the price of a pill that’s made in the U.S., exported to Canada, then imported back into the U.S. Everything else I get from Canada is just adjusted by the difference if the value of the two currencies.</p>
<p>I’ve never understood why Americans are so enamored of their health system. After five years in Germany I’ll take socialized medicine any day. My husband got a house visit from the doctor for a shot for back pain. I got to spend five days in the hospital, because my baby had jaundice.</p>
<p>WOW, I am now really persuaded that socialized medicine must be the way to go</p>
<p>“It is this deeper, more nuanced hypocrisy that this episode exposes. The closet tolerants–and they include both the president and vice president–exist in a party that has built its electoral machine on systematic intolerance and the fueling of populist fear of homosexuals. This edifice cannot stand indefinitely, and the sudden collapse of Mark Foley’s career may be a portent of what is to come. The old manners of GOP Washington are being buffeted by the countervailing currents of gay mainstreaming and political opportunism. At some point, Republicans are going to have to choose between the two.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061016&s=sullivan101606[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061016&s=sullivan101606</a></p>
<p>Andrew Sullivan is one of the reasons I became a Republican. Talk about a hypocrite. For some reason he pretends to be a Catholic and a conservative.</p>
<p>wait, wait, wait… If the Soros people handed over documents for the investigation that means they had prior knowledge of this. If they knew that a congressman was engaging with a page and they had evidence why didnt they present it earlier? my guess is that they wanted to release it at a time before the election when it would be devestating to republicans and just keep talking it up. You have to be blind to not see my logic, or otherwise ■■■■■■■■</p>
<p>Collegedude, you’re about two weeks behind the curve with desperate (and dead wrong) claim. All of us “blind” and “■■■■■■■■” folks who actually checked out the facts were up to speed on this days ago. Check out: <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001379_pf.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001379_pf.html</a>
Or you could just take the time to read through this thread and the earlier “Party of Family Values” thread and see how this Republican slime-slinging was trotted out before.
And I’m curious: who feeds this nonsense to “collegedudes” these days?</p>