On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:22 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback
sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost
$6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of
insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home
blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got
lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me.

Yes, good luck for you, Phaser Eyes.


Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance. That
is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage.

Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many
people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay for
it.

Right, the price starts at $500 to walk in and you're usually up over
a grand by the time you walk out. When I took friends into the ER in
Vista, I saw nothing but non-English speaking folks in there. The ER
even has to treat illegals and La Migra won't even come arrest them
after they're treated. We pay for it all.

My half a dozen potential ER trips were made non-issues for me by me.
I cleaned the cut and butterflied it together with Bacitracin inside.
It was always like new by a couple weeks later.


There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology.

True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full
60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university research
then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution with
but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary
profits on our own tax dollar.

sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical
communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid
something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in
pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA
decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-)

You should have been in the other half, Ed.


The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know
that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not
know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through after
some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than the
basic research.


Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper.

Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing
studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have to
recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada,
they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to
amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the
Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the US.

Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from
somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs.

Yabbut why 400-25,000% profit for seventeen years?

Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have
plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment
without insurance?

Ask Larry.

Non responsive.

Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to ask.

Sorry, he's in my filters for previous infractions. Is he worth
unfiltering for awhile, Ed?


I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few
months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new insurance.
(My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like
now.

I have an agreement with my body that if I have to get really sick,
it'll just let me go into the recycle bin. It keeps me well and I take
as good a care of it as I know how. I do buy bandaids, though.

--
Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without
hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
-- George Sand

Larry Jaques wrote:

big snip

When I took friends into the ER in
Vista, I saw nothing but non-English speaking folks in there. The ER
even has to treat illegals and La Migra won't even come arrest them
after they're treated. We pay for it all.

Reminds me of an email I got recently. The fellow slipped on his old military uniform
after sewing an emblem on his shirt that said, "USA Border Patrol" About 3/4 of the ER
emptied shortly after he came in. He got waited on without the typical delay. :-)



I have an agreement with my body that if I have to get really sick,
it'll just let me go into the recycle bin. It keeps me well and I take
as good a care of it as I know how. I do buy bandaids, though.


One lady told me of taking her 80+ y.o. mother to the doctor. He asked, "Who is your
family doctor?" She didn't respond. He asked, "WHO IS YOUR FAMILY DOCTOR?" a little
louder thinking she was partially deaf. She replied that she did not have one. He then
asked to what she owed her longevity. She said, "From staying just as far away as
possible from doctors and drug stores!" Her daughter almost cracked up.

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:58:22 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


Meantime, here's another one: I have a nice new insulin pump with feedback
sitting in a box next to me, to be stuck into/onto me tomorrow. It cost
$6,000. 35 years ago I had a 25-cent syringe and a $10/month bottle of
insulin, and that was it, pard'. Pumps didn't exist. Neither did home
blood-glucose monitoring. I just took a stab at it -- literally. g I got
lucky and survived it with my limbs, kidneys, and eyes. Good luck for me.

Yes, good luck for you, Phaser Eyes.


Health Care is essentially unavailable in the US without insurance.
That
is hijacking health care holding Americans hostage.

Actually, that's not the case. Emergency rooms can't refuse you, and many
people use ERs as their primary-care physicians. Then the rest of us pay
for
it.

Right, the price starts at $500 to walk in and you're usually up over
a grand by the time you walk out. When I took friends into the ER in
Vista, I saw nothing but non-English speaking folks in there. The ER
even has to treat illegals and La Migra won't even come arrest them
after they're treated. We pay for it all.

My half a dozen potential ER trips were made non-issues for me by me.
I cleaned the cut and butterflied it together with Bacitracin inside.
It was always like new by a couple weeks later.

You're a lucky guy. My one ER trip was for kidney stones. I don't know what
you could do about that on your own -- especially since you're doubled over
and puking your guts out at the time.

There's always a ready market for new drugs and new medical technology.

True, and sometimes the costs are justified. But recognize that a full
60% of new drugs are governmentally subsidized through university
research
then turned over to pharmaceuticals for manufacture and distribution
with
but a bare tithe to the university while Abbott et. al. gains usuary
profits on our own tax dollar.

sigh I'm well aware of how that works. My last job in a medical
communication agency involved a drug on which Sanofi-Aventis had paid
something like $135 million in development costs, and $110 million in
pre-approval marketing costs (which was paying my salary). Then the FDA
decided not to approve the drug. So my company laid half of us off. d8-)

You should have been in the other half, Ed.

The editor who stayed had me on seniority and made half my salary. And there
wasn't much to write or edit without that drug (rimonabant) to work on. g



The basic research on that drug was not from a university, however. I know
that a lot of the basic research is done in universities. What you may not
know is that the testing that the pharma companies have to go through
after
some basic-science lab makes a discovery often costs ten times more than
the
basic research.


Generics, Canadian, and other sources are often 90% cheaper.

Of course. Generics just ride on the research, testing, post-marketing
studies and marketing that was done for the original drug. All they have
to
recover is manufacturing costs and quality-control reporting. In Canada,
they have price controls and just refuse to allow the drug companies to
amortize research and development. The Canadians, and the French, and the
Brits, and everyone else knows that they can collect those costs in the
US.

Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from
somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs.

Yabbut why 400-25,000% profit for seventeen years?

Larry, those are publicly owned companies. If they're making 25,000% profit
(I won't ask how that was calculated -- my instincts tell me it would be
painful to hear), what would their net on sales look like? You can look up
their annual reports online to check that out.


Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have
plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment
without insurance?

Ask Larry.

Non responsive.

Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to
ask.

Sorry, he's in my filters for previous infractions. Is he worth
unfiltering for awhile, Ed?

I think that conversation has come to an end.



I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few
months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new
insurance.
(My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like
now.

I have an agreement with my body that if I have to get really sick,
it'll just let me go into the recycle bin. It keeps me well and I take
as good a care of it as I know how. I do buy bandaids, though.

As someone who felt that way for almost all of his life, I understand what
you're saying. As someone who almost died less than two years ago, my
thinking has changed -- especially since I would have lost the farm without
insurance.

Having a family changes one's thinking on all of that, too. Fortunately for
me, that's the reason *I* was well covered.

--
Ed Huntress

"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Huntress wrote:

You're a lucky guy. My one ER trip was for kidney stones. I don't know
what you could do about that on your own -- especially since you're
doubled over and puking your guts out at the time.

I currently don't have insurance and next to a heart attack, stones are my
biggest worry. I've been that route 3 times, and I'd sure hate to see the
bills for those visits. Especially the lithotripsy for the last bout....
Did manage to pass one small one myself, without pain killers. I'd hate to
have to try that again!

I'll tell ya, Jon, I think it is absolutely nuts that working guys like you
and Larry and others here, for one reason or another, aren't covered by
insurance. The absurdity is that the country with the biggest economy in the
world doesn't have universal healthcare coverage.

There are a lot of reasons that people aren't covered. For four or five
years I couldn't get coverage at ANY price, until NJ changed its laws to
make insurance companies cover people with chronic conditions. Then, for
another three years, if I hadn't been covered by the company I worked for, I
would have paid three times the basic rate for coverage. At today's rates,
that would be around $38,000/year for a "full coverage" (pitoooeee!) PPO or
similar plan. The law then changed again so I get the same rates as everyone
else. I didn't dare go off and work for myself until that happened.

My heart attack came right out of the blue, with absolutely nothing to warn
me, and the cost was ungodly. There is no freaking reason in the world that,
in the US, guys like you are out on a limb, exposed to financial risks like
that. I don't care why; there are plenty of good reasons that individual
people aren't covered, as I've learned over the years.

Not having universal coverage is a social scourge and it puts a damper on a
lot of people's lives, not the least of which is that it discourages some
from pursuing their own businesses, which is exactly the opposite of what
would be desirable in a fast-changing global economy. We need the
entrepreneurship and new ideas.

McCain's plan is nonsense. Obama's is only a half measure, but something has
to be done, and it's a start. That's a major factor influencing me in this
election. And it's not because I need it for myself. I'm pretty well locked
in. I just don't like the negative effect that not having universal coverage
has on our entire society.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:

You're a lucky guy. My one ER trip was for kidney stones. I don't know what
you could do about that on your own -- especially since you're doubled over
and puking your guts out at the time.

I currently don't have insurance and next to a heart attack,
stones are my biggest worry. I've been that route 3 times,
and I'd sure hate to see the bills for those visits.
Especially the lithotripsy for the last bout....
Did manage to pass one small one myself, without pain
killers. I'd hate to have to try that again!


Jon

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:59:23 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .

My half a dozen potential ER trips were made non-issues for me by me.
I cleaned the cut and butterflied it together with Bacitracin inside.
It was always like new by a couple weeks later.

You're a lucky guy. My one ER trip was for kidney stones. I don't know what
you could do about that on your own -- especially since you're doubled over
and puking your guts out at the time.

Like I said, I treat my body right and it doesn't do things like that.



You should have been in the other half, Ed.

The editor who stayed had me on seniority and made half my salary. And there
wasn't much to write or edit without that drug (rimonabant) to work on. g

C'est la guerre, non?


Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from
somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs.

Yabbut why 400-25,000% profit for seventeen years?

Larry, those are publicly owned companies. If they're making 25,000% profit
(I won't ask how that was calculated -- my instincts tell me it would be
painful to hear), what would their net on sales look like? You can look up
their annual reports online to check that out.

Put an aspirin in each eye and look:

I read some article sometime way back which stated that they had
records showing that the pill price was 250 (or 2,500?) times that of
the cost. Pills that expensive don't sell a lot, but they don't
-have- to, do they? What's the cost for Interferon and other AIDS
drugs? They're getting $1,000-1,500 per month per _patient_ for
those. Keflex (a pennicillin kin) is $45 for four pills. Seniors are
paying hundreds of dollars a month for each prescription not covered
by the vacuous and vague Medicare Part D. And I've only touched the
tip of that iceberg.


Health care insurance is just another facade by those who have
plundered our economy. Have you tried to get a doctors appointment
without insurance?

Ask Larry.

Non responsive.

Oh, Larry is quite responsive, and he has no insurance. He's the one to
ask.

Sorry, he's in my filters for previous infractions. Is he worth
unfiltering for awhile, Ed?

I think that conversation has come to an end.

g


I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a few
months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new
insurance.
(My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like
now.

I have an agreement with my body that if I have to get really sick,
it'll just let me go into the recycle bin. It keeps me well and I take
as good a care of it as I know how. I do buy bandaids, though.

As someone who felt that way for almost all of his life, I understand what
you're saying. As someone who almost died less than two years ago, my
thinking has changed -- especially since I would have lost the farm without
insurance.

Having a family changes one's thinking on all of that, too. Fortunately for
me, that's the reason *I* was well covered.

As I said, I have an agreement with my body to die instead of getting
really, really sick. Then burn me and feed me to the fishes. I'll be
back. wink

--
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous
delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
--e e cummings

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:59:23 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:

snip


Don't like it? Talk to your congressman. The money has to come from
somewhere, or nobody will have any new drugs.

Yabbut why 400-25,000% profit for seventeen years?

Larry, those are publicly owned companies. If they're making 25,000%
profit
(I won't ask how that was calculated -- my instincts tell me it would be
painful to hear), what would their net on sales look like? You can look up
their annual reports online to check that out.

Put an aspirin in each eye and look:

I read some article sometime way back which stated that they had
records showing that the pill price was 250 (or 2,500?) times that of
the cost. Pills that expensive don't sell a lot, but they don't
-have- to, do they? What's the cost for Interferon and other AIDS
drugs? They're getting $1,000-1,500 per month per _patient_ for
those. Keflex (a pennicillin kin) is $45 for four pills. Seniors are
paying hundreds of dollars a month for each prescription not covered
by the vacuous and vague Medicare Part D. And I've only touched the
tip of that iceberg.

The trouble with that iceberg is that you're looking at the cost of
manufacturing the second pill, which often is pennies. But the cost of the
first pill often tops $300 million. Are you with me?

Canada gets the second pill. We have to buy the first one -- but we get to
spread the cost across all the pills we buy. If we bought the second one
there would be no one to buy the first one. Then there would be no pills for
anyone.

I'm not saying I like the situation, but that's the way it is when you don't
have price controls. All those other countries get to have price controls
only because we don't have any. Are you still with me?

Do you still like unregulated markets? Are you still planning to vote
Libertarian? Where's strabo when we need him? d8-)


I've had insurance without a break for decades, excepting one gap of a
few
months when my COBRA ran out and I was having trouble getting new
insurance.
(My doctors knew it, and took me anyway.) So I don't know what it's like
now.

I have an agreement with my body that if I have to get really sick,
it'll just let me go into the recycle bin. It keeps me well and I take
as good a care of it as I know how. I do buy bandaids, though.

As someone who felt that way for almost all of his life, I understand what
you're saying. As someone who almost died less than two years ago, my
thinking has changed -- especially since I would have lost the farm
without
insurance.

Having a family changes one's thinking on all of that, too. Fortunately
for
me, that's the reason *I* was well covered.

As I said, I have an agreement with my body to die instead of getting
really, really sick. Then burn me and feed me to the fishes. I'll be
back. wink

I'd rather see you have a system whereby paying the individual rate for
insurance coverage didn't break the bank.

--
Ed Huntress

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:35:10 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrolled the following:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .

I read some article sometime way back which stated that they had
records showing that the pill price was 250 (or 2,500?) times that of
the cost. Pills that expensive don't sell a lot, but they don't
-have- to, do they? What's the cost for Interferon and other AIDS
drugs? They're getting $1,000-1,500 per month per _patient_ for
those. Keflex (a pennicillin kin) is $45 for four pills. Seniors are
paying hundreds of dollars a month for each prescription not covered
by the vacuous and vague Medicare Part D. And I've only touched the
tip of that iceberg.

The trouble with that iceberg is that you're looking at the cost of
manufacturing the second pill, which often is pennies. But the cost of the
first pill often tops $300 million. Are you with me?

I'm aware of that. I'm just saying that it still seems extreme.
They'll sell hundreds of millions of those pills and recoup their
costs the first year. The next sixteen years are billions in gravy.
At our expense.


Canada gets the second pill. We have to buy the first one -- but we get to
spread the cost across all the pills we buy. If we bought the second one
there would be no one to buy the first one. Then there would be no pills for
anyone.

I'm not saying I like the situation, but that's the way it is when you don't
have price controls. All those other countries get to have price controls
only because we don't have any. Are you still with me?

Praps. What are you saying would happen if we were to impose price
controls?


Do you still like unregulated markets? Are you still planning to vote
Libertarian? Where's strabo when we need him? d8-)

Hey, even the stoutest Libertarian knows there are limits to
deregulation.


As I said, I have an agreement with my body to die instead of getting
really, really sick. Then burn me and feed me to the fishes. I'll be
back. wink

I'd rather see you have a system whereby paying the individual rate for
insurance coverage didn't break the bank.

I'm pretty sure I would, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

--
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous
delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
--e e cummings

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:35:10 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrolled the following:


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
. ..

I read some article sometime way back which stated that they had
records showing that the pill price was 250 (or 2,500?) times that of
the cost. Pills that expensive don't sell a lot, but they don't
-have- to, do they? What's the cost for Interferon and other AIDS
drugs? They're getting $1,000-1,500 per month per _patient_ for
those. Keflex (a pennicillin kin) is $45 for four pills. Seniors are
paying hundreds of dollars a month for each prescription not covered
by the vacuous and vague Medicare Part D. And I've only touched the
tip of that iceberg.

The trouble with that iceberg is that you're looking at the cost of
manufacturing the second pill, which often is pennies. But the cost of the
first pill often tops $300 million. Are you with me?

I'm aware of that. I'm just saying that it still seems extreme.
They'll sell hundreds of millions of those pills and recoup their
costs the first year. The next sixteen years are billions in gravy.
At our expense.

The typical recoup time is over 10 years. Some of the newer ones aren't
recouped at all under the patent; the pharma companies eventually make a
profit by enterring the generic business and competing with themselves. g
It's like movie producers selling DVDs while their films are still in the
theaters.



Canada gets the second pill. We have to buy the first one -- but we get to
spread the cost across all the pills we buy. If we bought the second one
there would be no one to buy the first one. Then there would be no pills
for
anyone.

I'm not saying I like the situation, but that's the way it is when you
don't
have price controls. All those other countries get to have price controls
only because we don't have any. Are you still with me?

Praps. What are you saying would happen if we were to impose price
controls?

No new drugs, and a lot of low-margin older ones would disappear from the
market altogether. Drugs for low-prevalence diseases would go out the
window.



Do you still like unregulated markets? Are you still planning to vote
Libertarian? Where's strabo when we need him? d8-)

Hey, even the stoutest Libertarian knows there are limits to
deregulation.

Fat Libertarians are smarter than skinny ones? g



As I said, I have an agreement with my body to die instead of getting
really, really sick. Then burn me and feed me to the fishes. I'll be
back. wink

I'd rather see you have a system whereby paying the individual rate for
insurance coverage didn't break the bank.

I'm pretty sure I would, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

I hope you have one hell of a bullet-proof living will, or they'll flop you
on a gurney some day and fix you up whether you like it or not. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:00:51 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrolled the following:

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
.. .

I'm aware of that. I'm just saying that it still seems extreme.
They'll sell hundreds of millions of those pills and recoup their
costs the first year. The next sixteen years are billions in gravy.
At our expense.

The typical recoup time is over 10 years. Some of the newer ones aren't
recouped at all under the patent; the pharma companies eventually make a
profit by enterring the generic business and competing with themselves. g
It's like movie producers selling DVDs while their films are still in the
theaters.

Interring?

Yabbut, those are to two different markets. I seldom go to theaters
any more, as I refuse to pay ten bucks for sitting the middle of
people with BO or nasty hair oil, too much perfume, or loud kids, and
cell phones, pagers, etc. I have a nice 100w/channel Technics
surround sound system (with Bose and ESS speakers) and can crank it as
loud as I like when playing one of the 12 DVDs I get from Netflix each
month for $12.99.


Canada gets the second pill. We have to buy the first one -- but we get to
spread the cost across all the pills we buy. If we bought the second one
there would be no one to buy the first one. Then there would be no pills
for
anyone.

I'm not saying I like the situation, but that's the way it is when you
don't
have price controls. All those other countries get to have price controls
only because we don't have any. Are you still with me?

Praps. What are you saying would happen if we were to impose price
controls?

No new drugs, and a lot of low-margin older ones would disappear from the
market altogether. Drugs for low-prevalence diseases would go out the
window.

That would be bad. I like $4 scripts of pennicillin for nuking sinus
infections when I forget to wear my filters when spreading compost.
It only took me twice to figure that one out. I thought the first time
it was from the JoGro (processed sludge and tree compost) which hadn't
been properly heated and the bugs burned out by the ammonia. Now I
know that it's any organic material that my schnozz doesn' like.
sigh


Do you still like unregulated markets? Are you still planning to vote
Libertarian? Where's strabo when we need him? d8-)

Hey, even the stoutest Libertarian knows there are limits to
deregulation.

Fat Libertarians are smarter than skinny ones? g

I thought "staunchest" and wrote "stoutest", so sue me.


As I said, I have an agreement with my body to die instead of getting
really, really sick. Then burn me and feed me to the fishes. I'll be
back. wink

I'd rather see you have a system whereby paying the individual rate for
insurance coverage didn't break the bank.

I'm pretty sure I would, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

I hope you have one hell of a bullet-proof living will, or they'll flop you
on a gurney some day and fix you up whether you like it or not. d8-)

I'm thinking of having "Do Not Resuscitate" tattooed to my wrist. I
need to update my Advanced Medical Directive soonest! I'm a year out
of date.

--
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous
delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
--e e cummings