Hits & Misses – 2009/7/9
Lucy snatches the football again: Waxman says the House and the White House are not bound by Senate deal with drug companies.
Blacks with equal care are still more likely to die of some cancers. Yet another reason to avoid cookbook medicine.
Value Based Purchasing. That’s a mouthful. Isn’t “rationing” a simpler and more direct term? Or better yet, “The R Word.”
Hard to feel sorry for the drug companies.
Interesting to see that the hospitals are willing to stab their patients in the back.
This is from Andy Chasin, re: the first item:
Kim Srassel has an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal that is probably flying around the emails of Washington health care lobbyists this morning. Strassel says, “After retaking the House in 2006, the party made clear that companies that did not hire Democratic lobbyists would not get a hearing in Washington. The ruling party is now seeing the fruits of its bullying. These days, a meeting of health-care lobbyists is better described as a reunion of Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’s former aides. Health-care lobbying has been turned on its head: The new cabal of Democratic lobbyists does not exist to protect the industry from Congress. It exists to present Democratic ultimatums to business. Industry players this week got a glimpse of how they will be treated. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman dismissed the $80 billion drug deal, claiming it did not have House support, and moreover that the White House “told us they’re not bound to that agreement.” … The question is just how long it is going to take for America’s health-care CEOs to realize they are being taken for a ride, both by Congress and their own lobbyists. Americans are wary enough about ObamaCare to maybe appreciate some straight talk from corporate America. If only corporate America can find the smarts to give it.”
Darn that Lucy! One of these days Charlie Brown will figure out her evil intentions.
As to Lucy and the football—
Why shouldn’t the drug companies accept maedaid payments? The answer is because they are planning on charging those seniors in question MORE than they would get under medicaid. True any discount is great but Big Pharma is cloaking itself with a thin veneer of compassion that when studied under the light of reality ican be seen for what it truly is…. Pharma wanting to overcharge yet again.
If you mail 2 packages, one domesdtically and one internationally, your cost will be greater for international shipping. Yet Pharma with higher costs charges 500/year for HIV drug internationally and charges 25,000/year for the swame exact regimen even though theior costs are less. You do the common sense math and the conclusion is that Insurance and Pharms both engage in predatory pricing when dealing with health care period.