adssx
#61
So calling people scumbags is fine but calling someone a joke is not?
3 Likes
Not at all - I may have missed another comment. I don’t read every comment on the site. Just flag it if someone posts something you think is outside our rules of engagement.
4 Likes
Sorry for the deluge, but an anti-pharma guy sent me these comics and I thought some might get a chuckle… or not… 
5 Likes
The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs
It is a common, longstanding complaint. And the culprits seem obvious: Drug companies. Insurers. A dysfunctional federal government.
But there is another collection of powerful forces that often escape attention, because they operate in the bowels of the health care system and cloak themselves in such opacity and complexity that many people don’t even realize they exist.
They are called pharmacy benefit managers. And they are driving up drug costs for millions of people, employers and the government.
The three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, act as middlemen overseeing prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans. They are owned by huge health care conglomerates — CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group — and are hired by employers and governments.
The job of the P.B.M.s is to reduce drug costs. Instead, they frequently do the opposite. They steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on what would otherwise be inexpensive medicines and extract billions of dollars in hidden fees, a New York Times investigation found.
História completa: The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs (NY Times)
Note the Price of Everolimus (a rapamycin-like drug / “Rapalog”) that people use in place of rapamycin
The pharmacist, Russell Hobbs, made a startling discovery. Mr. McKinley’s insurance paperwork showed that CVS was charging Oklahoma $138,000 a year for Mr. McKinley’s everolimus. But the online portal that Mr. Hobbs used to buy drugs from wholesalers indicated that he could procure everolimus for about $14,000.
The $124,000 difference reflected the approximate yearly profit that CVS was collecting just on Mr. McKinley’s prescription at the expense of Oklahoma taxpayers.
Relacionado:
4 Likes
This is an interesting story.
Option zero: import from India for $1
6 Likes
ng0rge
#68
1 Like
José
#69
They would never make false statements, everything they state is true.
2 Likes
And congressmen are known for their honesty.
ng0rge
#71
Do you have some reason to be on the side of the CVS, Cigna, UnitedHealth execs? Or is it just a cynical view of “who cares? they’re all evil.”? From the previous posts it would appear to me that PBMs need some reform. Are you against that?
1 Like
Just to show how Americans are taken advantage of…
Buy your Wegovy in the UK, folks.
4 Likes
Thanks Americans for subsidizing medicine for the rest of us!

5 Likes
AnUser
#76

That’ll be interesting. Someone should tell him about rapamycin, its discovery on Easter Island.
It’s going to suck if Measles, Pertussis, or Polio outbreaks start happening or something, though.
Edit: I just realized Bobby is going to have a hard time with the person taking 40 mg rosuvastatin and 1 mg finasteride 
2 Likes
And likely taking GLP1s aswell. Trump is the ultimate Big Pharma enjoyer.
3 Likes
I see the effects of this every day. I deal with the homeless and their aftermath on a daily basis.
While the opioid epidemic is a stain on humanity. The whole Sacker crime family and the ones they paid off to get this product to the market is an over the top story of greed and harm, but it’s only part of why we have the situation we are in.
Root cause… oxy is not the root cause, it’s a symptom.
5 Likes
mccoy
#80
We should add to the thread on fallacies the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy,
sometimes used by politicians when speaking of their opponents.
Here in Italy, it often transmutes into a Reductio ad Mussolinem
3 Likes