Lisa–Your Bloomberg article on Obama’s health plan (6/23/09) seems to miss some subtle but crucial points. It suggests that the pharmas will forego some profits and contribute to Obama’s health plan. Most readers will not concur with your understanding.

The pharmas are merely establishing a 10-year commitment to lock in their lucrative Part D plan that they got through G. Bush. As I understand the agreement, drug companies will still unilaterally set MSRP’s to maintain rising profit ratios, benefit from Government penalties on seniors who try to stop out, continue to enlarge the donut hole, continue to raise premiums, still collect premiums even when seniors stop using the plan, and not negotiate drug prices on the open, global market. Given all of these negatives, how can you report that the plan is a step forward?

I still buy all generics from Walmart, K-Mart or Target because their prices are less expensive than Government-sponsored plans. And even if some drugs get cheaper in the donut hole, my wife will have problems with some that cost $1300 for a 30-day supply. She gets in the donut hole after three months. My first two non-generic prescriptions were REJECTED by my insurer who recommended alternatives. I was already on them. They seem to attempt practicing medicine online and stifle the Part D program which was allegedly designed to help seniors have access to drugs at reasonable costs.

Part D Medicare is so politicized and costly because of the well-known, corrupt, process that brought it about. The Congressional pay-offs are a matter of record and any simple plan to modify it will fail. I’m afraid that the Baukus/AARP/Obama plan is a dismal attempt to foist a mythical solution on an unsuspecting public. The press needs to uncover such games and at least present all of the pertinent facts for readers to digest.

Do you really believe that the pharmas will forego any real profits? If Bush would have allowed negotiated prices 6-8 years ago, more than $96 BILLION would have already been saved by the seniors using Part D. How does this compare to the far-fetched, remote possibility of some $80 billion over the next decade? It’s a paper transaction that will not materialize; it’s politics at its worst; it is not real change. It is not a step forward.

If you never make it through the donut hole anyway, this is a good savings. But for seniors getting through to catastrophic, this doesn’t sound like any savings at all — a complete illusion. Their annual out-of-pocket is the same, it just takes longer to get there. So only one group benefits — seniors who never get out of the donut hole. Seniors who don’t reach the donut hole — nothing. Seniors with catastrophic drug needs — nothing. Maybe it saves a little interest if they charge the donut hole to their credit card. But it’s a good step towards closing the ridiculous donut hole.

You gotta watch the doctors. My doctor asked me if I ever have shortness of breath. I said yeah, when I climb twelve flights of stairs. So she sends me for a stress test? The guy at the stress test says, ’so you have shortness of breath and chest pains?’ Huh? What a racket!

http://web.archive.org/web/20050316092358/http://www.wxyz.com/wxyz/ys_investigations/article/0,2132,WXYZ_15949_2635151,00.html

On the other hand, a recently-deceased spinster aunt worked all her adult life for a large pharmaceutical company. Her job was basically clerical. She had no college education. But even after the major hits her portfolio took this last year, her estate was still worth over a million dollars. She was obviously paid well and had generous retirement benefits including very good health insurance coverage.

Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.

Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.

“There’s a whole bunch of care that’s being provided that every study, that every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier,” he said.

Gibson interjected that often patients don’t know what will work until they get every test they can.

“Oftentimes we know what makes sense and what doesn’t,” the president responded, making a push for evidence-based medicine.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/story?id=7919991&page=1

See, Obama says the health care options & treatment we get now are expensive and not always necessary (which we know is true sometimes. The question is who should make that decision? A patient and his doctor or the insurance company?). It just sounds like Obama is justifying denying treatments (or putting the patient on a never ending waiting list) since it’s not fiscally sound. And why should he care? It’s never going to affect him either way.

Still Obama is not willing to abide by the plans decision when it concerns his family. I still feel if the programs not good enough for him and his loved ones, why should it be good enough for the taxpayers?

Your mother may not need that surgery and just take pain meds instead

How do we know this isn’t the fact when the doctor doing the surgery has been told to keep the o.r. busy. People assume doctors are running things, they are not. They have become cogs in the machine… maybe personable cogs, but cogs nonetheless. Back to the point, weighing quality of life against projected life span isn’t such a bad idea. Would it make sense that somebody in their last year of life spends the bulk of that year in rehab for a joint replacement surgery? Maybe it doesn’t make so much sense. Maybe if profit was removed from the equation, everything would be more clear. How do we know unless we try?

Healthcare is business.

You keep on making my points for me. Yes, it is a “business”. It should be a “service”. It is not. What if food companies got together and charged what the market would bear for food… disregarding the world market for food… just charge them what they have for it. How much can they afford to eat? That would be immoral. We need health care the same as we need food to live. It is just as immoral to profiteer from that industry as it would to profiteer for food. Profit is fine… profiteering is immoral.