Quote Originally Posted by markw
A lot of drugs are seen as maintenance, such as blood thinners, beta blockers, blood pressure ,and other drugs. For some, these are the key to living a life where before them people would have died years ago. One of the good thing is that many are avaialble as generics on the $4.00 plans
This is fine for the cheap stuff, but not all maintenance drugs are that cheap. One of my neighbors who is also into audio (well probably not for much longer), recently lost his job and his health insurance. He was on cancer medications that totaled some $14K a month! The insurance paid for most of it when he had a job, but now what? These aren't exactly $4 pills and... it's a matter of life & death.

Now along comes the new healthcare bill that over time should slash drug prices (through competition, no less - competition: that mainstay of capitalism) to 1/10th of that cost. So instead of $14K, he'll pay $1400, still a chunk of cash, but much more manageable, and if your life depends on it, you'll find a way to pay for it.

Then our local Republican blow-hard Cox says this bill isn't fair to the drug companies. WTF? We're talking about life and death here and Cox is saying that his campaign contributors Pfizer, Eli, Merck, & the rest of the gang's stock price could drop a little from competition in the market place? That's rich.

So my neighbor's been on this letter writing, email, and calling campaign over this, but nary a single response from anyone (Democrat or Republican). He's a big believer in single-payer, but heaven forbid if that should happen. That would mean an Australia / Canada styled "socialist" system here - and we all know how horrible that is because that's what Fox news & Limbaugh are telling us.

So what next? Revolution? A massive dying off of people? Pray and hope that Cox gets cancer? Yeah we can laugh about that last one, but personal involvement has actually been the one thing that has had a positive effect and changed a few of the more recalcitrant minds out there (Nancy Reagan and stem cell research, Ariana Huffington and gay rights, there's a long list...). But these about-faces are rare, so what does one do from a grass-roots perspective?