Our great nation is at a
crossroads. The Supreme Court, the pinnacle
of our legal system, is deciding the fate of Gay Marriage for the country. This is a momentous point in our Nation’s
history. Will our most elite jurists be
able to preserve the sanctity of marriage?
Like many Americans, I am all
for preserving the sanctity of marriage.
If Gay Marriage will somehow hurt that sanctity, then I guess I am
against it.
Of course, the opposite is true
as well. Quite frankly, I am yet to be
convinced how matching genitalia has any effect on the sanctity of
marriage. I know lots of gay
couples. If they were to get married, I
can’t conceive how it would have any effect on the sanctity of my own
marriage. I’d just be happy. Call it Schadenfreude.
However, we need to protect the
sanctity of marriage at all costs.
Therefore, I propose that we, as a nation, take immediate action against
two known threats to the marriage contract.
To wit, I propose that we pass a law saying that, if you are divorced,
you cannot hold public office. In fact,
let’s just make divorce a felony. Any person who destroys the sanctity of
marriage by getting a divorce shouldn't be allowed to vote.
In addition, let’s attack that
other great threat to the sanctity of marriage – infidelity. Infidelity is such an affront to the sanctity
of marriage that I think it should be a capital offense. If you are caught cheating on your spouse, you
should be put to death. In fact, the
Bible talks about this quite a bit, so there should be little resistance to
this law from the religious right, who like to quote from the Bible when
discussing how gay marriage is an affront against God.
Truth be told, the Bible has
LOTS to say about infidelity and divorce.
I was going to quote from the Bible here to prove my point, but there
were just too many citations to fit. So, if you are so inclined, please visit this
link to see how the Bible is really, really against infidelity and divorce:
Kind of makes homosexuality look
like an also-ran in the eyes of God, n’est pas?
If this law were to pass (and I
hope it does so we can truly protect the sanctity of marriage), I have a great
idea for a growth business – being a stone salesman in Washington! Baseball season is upon us, I’m getting the ‘ol
pitching arm limbered up, and I just can’t wait to throw a few fastballs (er…fastrocks?)
at the sinners who cheat on and divorce their spouses.
The sad thing about the Gay
Marriage debate is that it is taking the Supreme Court’s attention away from
the other great issue they are discussing – one that truly has an effect on the
daily lives (and wallets) of most Americans.
In fact, I’d bet that most of us are unaware that this is even on the
Court’s Docket.
I am referring to the ‘Pay to
Delay’ scandal.
What’s ‘Pay-to-Delay’ you might
ask? Simply put, this is where Big Pharmaceutical
companies are paying millions of dollars to manufacturers of generic
medications NOT to make their off-patent drugs. This is an interesting case, because both
sides (Big Pharm and the Generic manufacturers) are all for it. The generic manufacturers are being paid
millions every year for literally doing nothing, and Big Pharm can continue to sell
their drugs for top dollar. In a
marketplace where a ‘name brand’ pill might cost $900 for a three month supply, it would be almost
impossible to compete with the generic equivalent that costs $10 for the same
number of doses.
When you consider the millions of
Americans who use prescription pills, the economics of ‘Pay to Delay’ make
perfect sense for both parties. In fact, the only people getting screwed here
are – you guessed it – the American consumer.
‘Pay to Delay’ has been going on
for many years. In fact, Big Pharm has
successfully had it upheld in lower courts for many years. Finally, due in no small part to the efforts
of the FTC, the issue is finally where it needs to be – in front of the US
Supreme Court. Hopefully, they will be
able to see this practice for what it really is – illegal collusion – and put
an end to this practice once and for all.
Unfortunately, we’ll all have to continue paying untold
millions of extra dollars evrey month for
off-patent name brand meds until after they decide whether two people with
matching genitalia can call themselves ‘married’.
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You have to love Columbus.
And by Columbus, I’m not talking about Genoa’s favorite son – the guy
who got credit for ‘discovering’ a land that was already inhabited by millions
of indigenous people. I’m talking about
the Columbus Market – one of the largest flea markets on the East Coast.
I went there this weekend with my family – it’s a fun way to
spend a Sunny Sunday morning. If they
don’t have what you want at one of their indoor or outdoor vendors, chances are
you don’t need it.
Columbus Market’s most infamous offerings has to be counterfeited merchandise.
Whether you’re looking for that fake Louis Vuitton bag, that faux-Rolex
watch, or that fake designer Polo shirt, Columbus has one of the widest selections this side of Macao. Knock
off goods are so prevalent there that the market is often featured in National
News stories about crack downs on illicit merchandise. These crack downs are very effective – after each
major effort by law enforcement, Columbus Vendors start keeping all of their
trademark-infringing goods under their tables instead of on top of them. The bargain-hunting buyer then has to ask for
them instead of just browsing the table-top selection. Alas, in spite of Law Enforcement efforts,
the wheels of commerce continue to turn.
I had to laugh this morning while watching BBC America
news. It seems that Interpol, the famous
international police force has started a
new crackdown on the latest product that is appearing on the black market –
prescription drugs. According to the
report, as much as 10% of all prescription drugs worldwide are fakes – and that’s
a problem. Very often, these drugs do
not work in the same way as the name-brand formulations that they are
aping. According to the report,
hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide can be traced to counterfeited
prescription drugs. However, I am not
100% convinced that this is really all that worrisome. After all, statistically speaking, I think
that this is in line with the number of deaths world-wide that are annually
attributed to bonafide prescriptives. Plus, I’m
sure that some people might actually be better off taking the fake stuff. We all have heard of the placebo effect, so
these phony pills are probably helping some people. In addition, these fake formulations probably
don’t have all the nasty, life-threatening side effects that the real McCoys
have. That totally bogus drug won’t cause cerebral hemorrhaging,
suicidal thoughts, or kidney cancer like the real stuff does. So, when you look at it from a ‘bang-for the
buck’ perspective, these fake pharmas
start to look like a real bargain.
From another perspective, consider the folks who have no
choice but to purchase the fake stuff. I
am sure that the people forking over $50 for a very convincing Louis Vuitton satchel
at Columbus would never be inclined to lay out $895 for the real thing. The same logic can be applied to the fake
pharmaceuticals. So what’s the
harm? Besides, some of these fakes are
of extremely good quality – maybe not as good as the genuine article, but
certainly good enough. And the savvy
consumer will always come out on top. If
that purse falls apart after a few weeks wear, you can bet that they’ll never
buy from that vendor again. Since many
of these vendors have been selling at Columbus for many, many years, I am
convinced that the quality of a lot of these fakes is actually quite good.
You also have to consider what type of fake drugs are being
sold. I am fairly sure that no one is peddling phony
cancer meds. Much more likely, the fakes
being sold are falling into the recreational category. This means one of two classes – ‘feel good’
meds like prescription pain killers or boner pills. In either event, the sought effect is readily
apparent to the end user, and if the drugs don’t work as expected, the person
selling the fakes won’t be in business for very long.
So with little relative harm to the end user. Why the big
push to stop the sale of these knock-off pills.
Well, it turns out, Interpol’s crackdown id being funded in part by a
coalition of more than two dozen of the world's largest
pharmaceutical companies, who have pledged
piddling 1.5 million Euros a year over the next three years to fund Interpol's
newly created Pharmaceutical Crime Program. When you compare this to the several billions
in sales lost annually to the fake drug sales that the Pharmaceutical companies
are claiming, this is a great no-brainer
investment for Big Pharm.
Of course, there is a much easier solution – just make the damn drugs
affordable in the first place.
Any vendor at Columbus will tell you, there is no way that you’re going
to sell a knock-off purse for $50 when the real one retails for $85. It’s really a matter of Economics 101.
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To me, there is nothing worse than a lame excuse. When you’ve been caught red-handed, have some
dignity, man up, and admit that you screwed up.
When the whole world knows you’ve made a mess of things, it’s better to
own your mistakes rather than to continue to try to justify your misdeeds. I think that, like most people, I came to
this realization dome time prior to my fifth birthday. Unfortunately, some people have never learned
this lesson
I think that the world heard the lamest excuse ever at the
Nuremberg trials after the Second World War.
Nazi War Criminals, when identified as the perpetrators of genocide, and
of being the most despicable people on the face of the earth, often quoted the
mantra that “we were just following orders”.
Hanging was too good for these sub-human scum.
The second lamest excuse is only slightly better. It’s basically just the civilian version of
the ‘just following orders’ excuse. Time
and time again, we here of people who royally screwed the pooch explain that they were “just doing our job”.
This often escalates into even greater lameness when someone
self appoints themselves to a job, fouls it up, and then tries to explain away
their sub-par performance.
A prime example of this were the Windshield Swipers of
Manhattan. Those of you who lived around
Manhattan may recall the windshield swipers
– homeless people who would spring on your car as soon as it was stopped at a
light and then proceed – without invitation – to wipe your windshield with a
dirty rag. I can’t recall at time when
my windshield was ever left cleaner after being the unwilling recipient of
their ‘cleaning’ services. Even though I
never asked them to clean my windshield – and even though they always did a
horrible job – they would also get belligerent or even violent if you didn’t
pay them for their ‘service’
Thank goodness that Mayor
Rudy Giuliani put an end to these
leeches when he took office in the
mid-eighties. Manhattan is now a much
nicer place to visit by car.
Of course, they windshield
swipers didn’t go away without a fight – they claimed that they were (you
guessed it) “ just doing their job “ .
While not readily apparent
to most of us, we have a version of ‘Windshield Swipers’ in our healthcare
system – and they are infinitely more intrusive, costly, and devastating to our
economy and well being than a squeegee carrying Manhattanite could
ever be. In fact, their uninvited
‘squeegeeing is ruining our healthcare system.
I am referring, of course,
to our health insurance carriers.
Let’s put things in
perspective. Our health insurance
carriers have injected themselves into our lives like a sterno bum at the exit of
the Lincoln Tunnel. They exact a 25-30%
premium from us for their uninvited services, extorting hundreds of dollars
every month from most Americans. They
greatly increase administrative overhead.
They cause runaway inflation in the cost of medicine. They make medical decisions regarding our
health and treatment.
They frustrate providers and
patients alike. They have interjected themselves soundly into our
healthcare system, much to it’s detriment.
And how do they justify
these dirty deeds? They say that they
are ‘just doing their jobs’. They are
helping ‘control the cost of medicine’. I
don’t know about you, but I’ve got a real problem with this.
First things first – who
gave them the job of ‘controlling the cost of medicine’? I certainly don’t recall doing this. Nor do I recall an Executive order, or Act of
Congress, or great public mandate demanding that they (or anyone else) help us
‘control the cost of medicine’. They
seem to have come up with this ‘job’ all by themselves.
Secondly, even if it is
their job to help us ‘control the cost
of medicine’ (and that’s a VERY BIG
‘IF”. They are doing a terrible job of it.
In the past 20-30 years, as health insurance became an ever-larger part
of the healthcare biosystem, we have watched helplessly as the cost of
healthcare has spiraled hopelessly upwards,
In other words, like that
guy outside of Port Authority smearing my windshield, they suck at their self
appointed job. Instead of improving
things, they make matters worse – in fact, much worse. It would be bad enough
if we hired them to ‘help control the cost of medicine’, but we didn't So, how do you fire someone you didn't hire? In fact, this whole scheme sounds
like something George Costanza dreamed up.
Fortunately, Manhattan
happens to hold the answer to this dilemma.
One of their most famous residents has made a second career of
this. So, it seems to me that all we
need to do is to get The Donald himself to start calling out the major players
in health insurance and let them know, in no uncertain terms, “You’re Fired!”
Now, that would be an
episode of ‘The Apprentice’ worthy of my DVR.
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Oh, the agony of da feet.
Or at least the discomfort. Well,
mild discomfort, at least. I mean, I
didn’t even notice it until that awful day….
.
My podiatrist gently broke the news to me – the news that no
one ever wants to hear. His caring, sympathetic
eyes gazed up at me over my bare tootsies:
“looks like you have a little Athlete’s Foot, here, Rick”
Curses! Could this really be happening to me? I mean, I always shower every day, and wear
clean socks. I never walk around
barefoot. How could this happen to me?!!
As I rapidly passed through the varying stages – Denial,
Anger, Bargaining and finally Acceptance (this all happened while I put my
socks back on), the doctor delivered some positive news. He asked if I had prescription coverage. When I told him that I did, he smiled and handed
me a prescription savings card for Naftin Cream, and a script for the
same. “This will clear it up shortly” he
told me smiling. “And with this
prescription card, there will be no out of pocket expense”.
Thank God and Country for this minor miracle in a tube. Thanks to Naftin, and my prescription
coverage, I didn’t have to worry about a future plagued by itchy feet.
Now, I have been working professionally with the Podiatry
field for some 25 years now. I knew that
the go-to drug for many years was Lotrimin.
So, where did this upstart Naftin come into the picture?
First of all, Naftin isn’t cheap. The best price I could find online for this
fungus-fighter is $330.00 a tube. This
means, of course, that, in spite of my discount card, my health insurance
carrier was paying out the wazoo for this stuff. In fact, without that savings card, I would
have had to pony-up a $60 co-pay for my 60 grams of Naftin. But, like most people, my feet are important
to me. I use them almost every day of my
life. Nothing but the best for my two
not-so-little buddies!
I was therefore very upset to discover that Naftin wasn’t
even the best treatment for my fungal foot funk. Statistically, ol’ reliable Lotrimin
was. Naftin isn’t even the second best
choice – it actually comes in a distant third in the battle against Tinea
Pedis.
So why didn’t my Podiatrist prescribe Lotrimin to me instead
of the less-effective Naftin? Well,
there is a VERY GOOD reason for this.
Lotrimin has a very serious fault.
The patent expired on this one-time champion drug, and it is now
available over the counter for a couple of dollars. The economics just don’t work out.
Of course, up in the Great White North (Canada, that is)
Lotrimin is still king. That’s because
both Lotrimin and Naftin are available over the counter, both for the same price as a couple of Maple
Sugar Donuts at Tim Hortons. And who
would pay a Toonie for a tube of third rate foot cream when they could get a
better working cream for the same price?
Naftin isn’t a big seller with the Labatt Blue crowd.
Luckily for Merz, maker of Naftin. It’s still a prescription
only product down here in the lower 48.
Merz can still pay its reps to visit podiatry clinics bearing gifts of
free lunch and discount prescription cards, in order to convince them to
continue to write scripts for their $330.00 underperformer.
Who says that the US Healthcare system in this
country is broken? Certainly not Merz Pharmaceuticals.
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I've looked at life from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all
- Joni Mitchell
In my last post, I ranted
about how the increase in gun violence can be directly attributable to our
failing mental health system. My darling
niece, who has bravely faced her own struggle with mental health (and with the
assholes in t her Health Insurance Carrier’s Claim office) pointed out to me
that not all people who face mental health challenges are violent. She is, of course. 100% correct on this, and
I apologize to everyone if I somehow implied this in my last post.
Let me elaborate further by
looking at the Flip Side of the Sandy Hook tragedy. The gunman who slaughtered the innocents
obviously suffered from his own demons, but he was (thankfully) in a violent
minority of people with mental health issues who are somehow intertwined in
this tragedy. Witness if you will the
throngs of the Westboro Baptist Church, the tiny
independent fundamentalist Christian church based in Topeka, Kansas. Seems that they planned to ‘protest’ at the funeralsof
the victims of theSandy Hook Elementary Schoolshooting
and declaring“God sent the shooter.”
You may recall that this is the same group that has protested many
funerals of slain American soldiers. ‘Freedom
of ‘religion’ aside, these people, are, in my layman’s opinion, as mentally troubled as the shooter himself.
Sadly, there are even more mentally unbalanced groups who
are being drawn to the Sandy Hook tragedy like moths to a flame. There apparently a group of ‘Truth Seekers’
who are organized and are demanding the ‘truth’ about what happened at Sandy
Hook. Yhey are apparently harassing and
threatening some the Sandy Hook first responders and their families. They somehow feel that the events of that
awful day are not being reported truthfully, and they are demanding that the ‘real’
story be told. Mind you, these people have
no other connection to Sandy Hook – they are just self-appointed guardians of ‘the
truth’, and they therefore feel that it is their duty to investigate imaginary alternative
scenarios that explain the awful events of that day. Some say that Sandy Hook was a the start of a government plot to take their guns away. Obviously, there isn’t a rational person
among them.
I know that ‘conspiracy nuts’ have been around for a long
time, but it seems that this country is growing a bumper crop of these mentally
unbalanced folks. Of course, their
actions will no doubt further upset the real victims and families of Sandy
Hook, and drive many of them further towards the cliffs of sanity. Mental Illness can be contagious – in many cases,
it can be downright virulent.
Many dismiss these conspiracy theorists as harmless ‘nuts’,
but this is not the case at all. I
shudder when I imagine the additional pain, anguish, and emotional damage that
they are bringing to the grief stricken families. Must be because I had the flu for Christmas And I'm not feelin' up to par It increases my paranoia Like lookin' at my mirror and seein' a lit up police car -- David Crosby
These unbalanced individuals also can bring a great deal of
harm to themselves. I knew a Doctor who
was a skilled diagnostician, well respected by his peers, loved by his patients
and staff. His whole career unraveled
when he became involved in a 9-11 conspiracy group. Fueled by meetings of like-minded individuals
and internet postings, his obsession with 9-11 conspiracy became all
consuming. He soon could not have a
conversation with anyone – including a patient – without espousing the latest 9-11
conspiracy theory. This once sober minded
physician’s eyes would open wide, his nostrils would flare, and he would
literally dance around as he regurgitated the latest ‘theory’. In spite of repeated warnings from the clinic
administrators, he just could not control himself. Ultimately he lost his job as a result of his
inability to control his obsession.
The mass hysteria continues to proliferate throughout our
society. There are now several television
shows about ‘doomsday preppers’ who spend ungodly amounts of money (often which
they do not have) to build expensive underground bunkers to protect themselves and
their families from Armageddon.
There have always been a small group of conspiracy theorists
living on the fringe of our society, but
with modern communication fueling their fire and limited ways of controlling
their angst, it seems that their ranks have been growing at an alarming
rate. The mental health crisis continues
to grow, largely unchecked, due largely to the mental health being ‘managed’ by
health insurance carriers. Certainly,
these conglomerates are making windfall profits, and their executives make
salaries that would make Carnegie jealous, but at what cost?
I am beginning to sound like I’m starting my own conspiracy theory
here, so let me dial things back a few notches.
Am I 100% convinced that there is a direct cause and effect between
lowered mental health coverage and the growing number of paranoid people in our
society? Absolutely not. However, I do believe that it’s time that
this phenomenon is studied by persons more learned than myself. At the very least, our leaders need to start
having the conversation.
It’s the rational thing to do.
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I’ve been asleep at the wheel for quite some time now. After this long of a nap, it would take some extraordinary event to wake me from my blogging slumber.
Unfortunately, we all just lived through such a terrible wake-up call. It’s now time to post another blog entry. It’s Hammer Time.
Most Americans of my vintage associate the phrase ‘Hammer Time’ with M.C. Hammer, the baggy pants wearing pop star of the 1980’s. Personally, I have a different, disturbingly violent association.
I used to live in a very nice town house. It was spacious, well built, and it had plenty of room for my growing family. It also looked a lot like a hundred similar units in my development. And this led to a very frightening turn of events one evening.
My townhouse had a street number of 123. So did an identical-looking unit a few blocks over. My wife and I both went to Rutgers University. So did the residents of the doppelganger unit. Fortunately, this is where the similarities ended. Thank God for that.
You see, one evening the man living in the doppelganger unit #123 decided to murder his wife. Not with a Glock 9mm or an AR-15 assault rifle mind you – he used a much more brutal weapon - a Stanley 16 ounce hammer. Bashed the poor woman’s skull in. I guess she shouldn’t have nagged him about leaving the toilet seat up…
This soon turned into a minor nightmare for me when the story hit the local news. Video about the ‘Rutgers man’ who murdered his ‘Rutgers wife’ with a hammer showed the exterior of the doppelganger house, complete with a very distinct #123 emblazoned on the front door.
It wasn’t long before the phone calls started. Friends and relatives soon started calling the house and asking ‘if ‘everything was OK’. Every caller was indeed surprised when I answered the phone. Some insisted on speaking with my wife to re-assure themselves that she was still among the living.
Of course, as the days wore on, my entire neighborhood was abuzz with discussions of the random violence that happened, quite literally, in our own back yards. Everyone was shocked by how our neighbor just snapped. It was all so surreal.
That terrible incident was 20 or more years ago. I’ve long since moved from that neighborhood.
Unfortunately, while I haven’t since been suspected of the violent murder of a loved one, similar events continue to happen in this country – in fact, it seems as if they have grown in frequency and scale.
20 years ago, during the many ‘over the fence’ discussions about the murder, no one once ever mentioned ‘hammer control laws’. While the Second Amendment doesn’t mention ‘the right to bear hammers’, no one – not even once – called for making hammers illegal.
While this may sound facetious in light of the horrific incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, please bear in mind that I have an important distinction that many seem to have lost post Sandy Hook. Regardless of what side of the gun control
argument you may align yourself with, the guns used to murder those innocent children were not the root cause of this - or any other – murder. Like my murderous ex-neighbor, the primary cause of the violence was a sick mind. A sick mind that was undiagnosed, untreated, or both. No normal mentally healthy person could ever be driven to take the life of innocents or loved ones so cavalierly.
I am not a ‘gun-nut’ – not by anyone’s definition. I am, however, very afraid that the anti-gun lobby is using these recent tragedies to promote their agenda. While there objectives are undeniably admirable, I think that they are unconsciously diverting our attention away from the root cause of these horrific events – namely, a failing mental health system. Diseased minds hell-bent on murder will always find a way to accomplish their mission. If an AR-15 isn’t available, a 16 ounce Stanley will accomplish the same terrible results.
Some may argue that a hammer isn’t well suited for mass murder like an automatic rifle is, and they have a point. But let’s remember that 168 innocents were murdered in Oklahoma City using just Diesel fuel and fertilizer. Or 3,000 plus were murdered on 9/11 by an insane band of brothers armed with nothing more formidable than box cutters.
The increase in volume and scale of these violent murders are more directly attributable to the decline of our mental health system.
As health insurance carriers started ‘managing’ mental healthcare, they invariably ‘cut off’ treatment for those who truly need it. If you can’t get your head straight after 12 visits, you’re out of luck and on your own. And please don’t get me started on those $500.00 a month anti-psychotic meds that aren’t covered by your prescription plan.
I am very fortunate that my immediate family and I haven’t faced the challenge of mental health issues so far, but I am not so naive as to ignore those who do suffer from the curse of mental illness. It is a debilitating a disease as cancer, MS, or Parkinson’s. It is a disease that not only affects the sufferer, as well as those around them. We can no longer afford, as a nation, to allow this disease to be left increasingly untreated or under-treated.
So ‘Obama-Care’ isn’t fair to health insurance carriers or pharmaceutical companies? So it will force them to deal with ‘unfair’ competition or price controls? Tough. It’s time for us to decide as a nation what’s more important – continued landmark corporate profits or the lives of innocent children.
Let me make myself perfectly clear – if you think that United Healthcare’s CEO’s salary or Pfizer’s annual dividend payment are more important than the lives of a classroom of first graders, you need to have your head examined. If you truly do believe that the continued windfall profiteering is more important (and many Americans still do), I can only hope, for everyone’s sake, that your healthcare plan covers Psychiatric Care and your anti-psychotic meds.
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