Monday, August 3, 2009
Just for a moment...
Forget the politics. Tune out the non-stop babbling by nearly every media outlet on a health care plan that I literally have no way of forming my own opinion on because a) I’ve never read it or seen any facsimile thereof and b) everyone seems ready to form my own opinion for me. But that’s another post for another day.
My problem is our problem. It has zilch to do with whether we support a jack-ass or an elephant. It has zilch to do with any self-imposed labels at all. The root cause of these problems is a lot more simple than the powers that be want to acknowledge.
I have insurance – which is not a luxury if I want -in 2009- to prevent something as complicated as a family member getting strep throat from turning us destitute in the richest country on the face of the Earth. Because a flashlight, cotton swab and amoxicillin will run you about $350 these days. There is zero justification for that. I don’t give a damn who voted for what.
Big pharma makes a soft target because they are a faceless entity whose earnings unfortunately come from sick people. Most people can appreciate that drugs are not cheap to develop, test, manufacture or distribute safely. But they can also appreciate that making drugs is complicated and problems are going to happen. There is always an inherent risk associated with the entire process.
But when problems occur, there are expediencies to address them built into the systems which will always require resources. And suing a company for $8 billion (that is not a typo) is going to help who? The people who are getting laid off right now as I write this who can fix this (or the people who now will now not get hired and remain unemployed)? The patients and countries that were getting drugs for free or at a greatly reduced cost because they couldn’t afford the treatments? Or the guy who isn’t willing to accept taking a risk in his investment and must recoup his cost (which of course isn’t going to be shouldered by the company…)
There’s not enough lipstick for this pig. It’s the same unadulterated greed that’s wrecking everything else. Remember that next time you’re holding a screaming infant in the line at the CVS forking over a car payment for a 6 oz. bottle.
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