Everyone seems to understand that one of the next great challenges of health care reform in MA is getting the cost of care under control. Gov. Patrick mentioned it in the campaign, and at Health Care for All’s recent conference. Connector chief Jon Kingsdale talks about keeping everyone at the table, that everyone is part of the solution. If we’re serious about dealing with costs, I’m not sure everyone’s going to continue to feel that way.
And indeed, someone’s getting rich off of the system the way it works now … including, fortunately or unfortunately, many of the main drivers of the Massachusetts economy. As I’ve said, ask Boston Scientific how they feel right now about accurate information in the marketplace, for example.
To paraphrase from another context, if we’re paying too much for health care, that means we want to pay less, right? And someone’s not going to be happy about that.
For instance, PhRMA will battle against state bulk-purchasing of drugs, or buying from Canada, or restrictions on their right to sleazy marketing. Many docs and hospitals are not going to like new pay-for-performance measures, and we’ve already seen that hospitals are chafing at the idea that they’d actually disclose their infection rates — i.e. provide information to the marketplace. Maybe that’s changing. And insurers will not enjoy being pressured by the state to provide more value for lower prices, or to make their operations more efficient and pass the savings on the consumer.
Will all of these interests continue to be “part of the solution” when the personal mandate starts to hit people where they live? When folks are pressured to buy insurance they can barely afford, and are hit with out-of-pocket costs they can’t afford, political pressure will be felt on the “landlords” of health care — as well as the creators and implementers of Chapter 58. In a sense, this is an advantage of the new political paradigm at work: If health care really is a “social good”, as Gov. Patrick says, it stands to reason that people will expect the government to act in the interests of everyone, not just those well-positioned in the current system.
Look for more Godzilla-vs.-Mothra headlines while the special interests fight these things out. One hopes that there will be some consideration for the vast majority of the population and the business community whose economic well-being is being significantly weakened by a single sector.
My health insurance premium is by far more costly than either my home, auto, disability, or life insurance premiums.
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The house insurance premium costs me about 0.25% of what I would get should my home burn to the ground. What I get in return is protection against large out-of-pocket expenses. I don’t file a claim for routine maintenance or small repairs. That helps keep my costs down.
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My auto insurance rates, to some extent, factor in my risks — age, driving record, high theft area, safety features. My auto insurance does not cover maintenance costs, and if I’m at fault in an accident, I may not recoup my costs.
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But what about health insurance? The premiums for an individual policy are about $6,000 a year. For that we get catastrophic and emergency care, medication, “wellness programs”, unlimited doctor’s visits, accupuncture, chiropractors. We get mental health benefits — likely just “counseling” for the majority of us who don’t really have a mental illness, but just needed someone to talk to. We get to extend our lives on ventilators and feeding tubes. Hooray for that.
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In exchange, I can smoke, not exercise, eat 100g of fat a day and my rates won’t go up one bit. Sweet!
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It wasn’t so long ago, that health insurance which covered catastophic costs was seen as acceptable. We were simply insuring ourselves against the unlikely and unfortunate experience of serious illness or hospitalization. If you had a minor ailment, you’d see your doctor, get a bill, and pay it. My childhood family doctor is to this day extremely generous with his payment plans.
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We’ve got to get over this notion that minimum coverage is a bad thing. It might be for some people, but for many others it’s just right. I know that if I were paying my premium of pocket, that’s what I’d be going for because I really don’t need more coverage than that.
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The problem isn’t the cost of the policies. It’s that they are all ‘full service’ when I might only want ‘basic’.
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And I’ll throw in a comment here about the Pharma bashing. Three weeks ago, on the day before his 10th birthday, my nephew was diagnosed with leukemia. Only about 60 children a year are dx’d with his particular type. I say thank goodness the healthcare industry — including pharmas — are able to research cures for even these rare cases.
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The U.S. spent $188B on prescription drugs in 2004. A lot of money you say, especially because we know those pharma companies are evil bastards.
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Well how about it folks?
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In 1997, the U.S. spent $3.5 trillion on elementary and secondary education. In 2005, McGraw-Hill Education reported revenues of $2.6B.
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Children with leukemia have an 80% chance of survival today compared with 20% in the 1960s. Yes, it’s been expensive, but we can point to tangible results.
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If only the education industry could claim similar advances commensurate with the country’s investment.
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….than training Americans to accept that healthcare exists to protect us from catastrophe and ability to pay for other services will determine who can access them (your example about your family doctor is literally quaint and not the reality for the super majority) let us instead train the government and the industry to adjust to the reality that comprehensive healthcare needs to be available to all regardless of financial considerations. Although I am certain you had no dubious intent, the good old days when we paid for minor ailments out of pocket were good almost exclusively for middle and upper class white people and virtually no one else by virtue of a number of realities that do not need to be explained here. To suggest that we should revert to them condemns too many people of all ethnicities, but non-whites in greater proportion, to the perpetual reality of never having access to healthcare until any number of treatable minor conditions have developed into catastrophes. And as the procedure become progressively more expensive as they almost certainly will everyone but the richest among us will be denied access to health care and instead offered “death care” as a substitute. This is unacceptable.
Not that it really matters, but my family was not middle class, or if we were, it was hanging at the lower end. We weren’t poor enough for handouts, at least none that I knew we took.
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But poor enough to qualify for free lunch.
Poor enough that meat was a luxury.
Poor enough that I didn’t go on school field trips, or have new clothes, or ask for toys.
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Yet we managed. Through my brother’s tonsilectomy. Through my mother’s high blood pressure. Through my father’s diabetes, pneumonia, and eventual cancer.
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So, please. Enough with your assumptions. It’s really insulting.
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Another thing has been bugging me. The message that “any number of minor treatable conditions” develop into catastrophes has been increasing in recent years. I can’t think of a minor ailment that blossoms into a totally different and deadly disease.
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Does the cost of treating those minor ailments amount to $6,000 a year? If not, then I have news for you. The only ones who are going to benefit from some of these insurance plans are the insurance companies! We haven’t seen market forces drive actual healthcare since the blossoming of health insurance.
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Look at what happened to college tuitions since federal loans became readily avaialalbe. Rates skyrocketed because the consumer no longer was saying “no”. Instead they were saying “charge it!”. Delayed costs. Not lowered costs.
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Chiseling up MA and allowing every insurance company a slice of the pie was a dumb move. It should have been winner take all. Then, we might have seen some market forces at work.
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…will cost over 6,000.00 with ease.
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As to your umbrage: I assumed nothing about you. I called your relationship with your family doctor quaint, which it in fact was and is. There is in fact now a trend for doctors to no longer process insurance and accept only cash, up front for services. The patient is left to submit insurance paperwork on their own behalf. Also, my historical context was also accurate as the most cursory research into health services for minorities and the poor in US history will reveal.
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I am sorry you were insulted, but I was commenting on your position, not your life or your family. But now I will do just that. I do not embrace your “we suffered so everyone else should” argument. It is insupportable when people are dying because they can’t afford basic health care.
That’s what escapes you.
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Fine, no offense taken.
…have believed you were suffering and it is your right to frame your life and its meaning. I, however, am certain that others in your parents’ position would have suffered the decision between what to eat for dinner and proper medical treatment for their family. Perhaps that’s what escapes you. If that pressure can be alleviated it should be.
Well, I sure do approve of the good things that pharma cos create. But I’m sorry, “you don’t get it for free” is utterly reductio ad absurdum.
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Now, since we’re talking about costs: Why should citizens of the United States subsidize the rest of the world’s drugs, to the tune of $66 billion? Why should we pay 60-70% more than other countries for the same stuff?
Problems begin when John Q Citizen goes to Dr Jones, or Mary Elizabeth Hospital and they DEMAND the best. Do everything in your power for ME! The other guy can worry about himself.. Here’s something most folks are not aware of.
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Mrs Jones , an 81 year old lady is tranferred from XYZ hospital to ABC nursing home tor rehab. Mrs Jones has respiratory issues, slight dementia, diabetes, chronic UTI, and she in now presenting for rehab re total right hip replacement. Mrs Jones is discharged from the hospital, with a continuance of all her home meds (all brand new order on carboard pharmacy dispensing cards)new meds realted to her present circumstance,anticoagulants, Regular and NPH insulin, and a continuation of IV antibiotic for four days due to a post op infection. In the interest of brevity lets just say she she has $600.00 of new meds for her ten days in rehab and more coming after seven days. Forty eight hours later Mrs Jones throws a clot and dies. Any guess’s on where all of her new an untouched meds go? WRONG ! They are destroyed ! Now a change. Mrs Jones is discharged after ten days and she still has a weeks worth of meds at the Rehab. The local MD/PA/ RNP will write for another 30 days of meds and send Mrs Jones home to see her GP within 72 hours. Her meds remaining at the nursing home/rehab MAY go home with her or they MAY go in the toilet. Very likely they will go in the toilet. This goes on in every nursing home, every rehab, many hospitals and every prison in this state. Millions and millions of dollars worth of perfectly good pharmaceuticals are destroyed every year. In one small area where I worked we destroyed $10,000. dollars worth of meds a month. I was absolutely appalled. I called regulators, politicians etc and got the same old line. “that’s the way it is”. Only within the past year are a few pharmaceuticals allowed to be recycled. Thepharmaceuticals that I alluded to previously were/are in sealed bottles or blister packs. But once they go out the door of the pharmacy they are considered expendable.
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You folks want to know where waste is—well now you have one.The Commonwealth of Massachusetts through medicare, medicaid, and our prison systems expends enough money on pharmaceuticals that are ultimately destroyed to fund a lot of schools and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Makes great points. There is a huge segment of our society who willfully abuse and flog the system. They run to the doctor and DEMAND scrips for virtually nothing. Th MD’s write to get them off their backs. Then there are the frequent flyers at ER’S/EMD’s.
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Then we have to alcohol, tobacco abusers who have their chronic issues. Now we are looking down the barrel of trillions in medical care for the obese who by age twelve are borderline diabetics and are non-insulin dependent by twenty , insulin dependent by thirty, and blind and amputees by forty and fifty. You floks ain’t seen nuth’n yet.
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There must be an incentive to be healthy and something punitive if you are predisposed to abuse of your physiology in whatever form. Americans must become more responsible for themselves. The consequence is that we all will suffer terrible financial hardship. The icing on the cake that fewer and fewer people are going into medicine because of the un ending hours, physical injury, poor compensation, mal practice insurance, and ambulance chasers who want to make the “Big Score”. Medicine is no longer the job it was. Who’s going to take care of these people? Talk to a doctor or a nurse over 40. I don’t care if you have a million bucks in your pocket. Without an educated, competent, licensed practitioner your money is worthless.
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This sure sounds like a Republican talking point to me. Designed to rile people up, designed to play on people’s sense of morality (abuse, entitlement, etc.)
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What percentage of the population suffers from hypochondria? I’m guessing it’s very small. CNN says it’s 5%. That’s not a “huge segment”. And hypochondria is a mental disorder — people aren’t going to the doctor because it’s as fun as going to a casino – they’re going because they’re scared to death that something is wrong with them.
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Perhaps you weren’t referring to the actual hypochondriacs. Maybe you were referring to people who go to a doctor when they don’t feel well, but it turns out that it’s nothing serious. But how do they know it’s not serious without going to the doctor? If you felt a lump in your neck but felt otherwise healthy, would you say “aw, I’m not going to the doctor, it’s probably nothing”. Such a decision could be fatal, and the road to your death would cost more than a simple visit to a professional who is trained to know what that lump is.
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Health care is not attractive to overconsume for personal gain. People don’t get medical procedures for the hell of it; doctors don’t allow that. The “abuse” you talk about is simply going to talk to a doctor about an ailment. In fact, I’d say that the overconsumers are far compensated for by the underconsumers, and given the two sets, I’d say that underconsuming is far more costly.
I cannot tell you how strongly I agree with you and am grateful to your efforts in replying. My opinion and my sentiment comes not only from life observations but from my 30 years working in healthcare, 15 of them as a nurse, and from learning about health policy and politics.
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These experinces have transformed me into an activist for fundamental healthcare reform. I’ve worked at the Dana Farber Cancer Inst (for 7 yrs), Mass General Hospital (2 yrs), the Boston Visiting Nurses Ass’n (10 yrs), Health Care for the Homeless (3 yrs), and taught nursing students for 3 colleges at the BI Deaconess, Hebrew Rehab, and a variety of clinical sites throughout the metro-Boston community for 12 yrs.
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And for 10 years I’ve been active with the Alliance to Defend Health Care. The need for a complete overhaul of the hc system could not be more urgent– for humanitarian as well as for economic reasons. The potential to vastly improve things is so great it’s as absurd as it is tragic. Does that make sense?
It makes sense for medications to be “recycled” if the medication was maintained within a trained, accountable, and verifiable chain of custody. If the pills were sitting in a locked storage room at a pharmacy, hospital, clinic, nursing home, etc — and if those pills are still for all intensive purposes “new” (nowhere near expiration date) and unaltered (halved, mixed, etc).
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There’s no sense in destroying those unless the cost to do so is more than their value (the paperwork and details necessary to transfer 3 pills that run $.40 each exceeds $1.20 in cost).
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Conversely, if that lady brought those pills home with her, there’s no way they should be “recycled.” Chain of custody was broken, and you simply can’t rely on those pills.
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I wonder: what percentage of prescription med costs are wasted this way. I doubt it’s very high (how many pills will a person be prescribed lifetime; how many will be on the shelf under his name when he dies), but money is money. Let’s squeeze a few percent here and there.
the administration of the waste.
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within an hour after my father died in his bed, two hospice nurses sat side-by-side on the floor of the bathroom beside the bedroom, and while one dumped bottle after bottle of unused prescriptions down the toilet, the other sat with a clipboard writing down everything flushed.
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they apologized sincerely for the scene, and explained that they were required to do this.
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and this is effective use of a nurses time? and of extremely expensive pharmaceuticals? and how much time and effort was spent with the results of the clipboard count wherever in god’s name that went?
As troubling as the financial waste that comes from dumping unused drugs into our sewage system is the actual waste that ends up polluting our water resources. There’s beginning to be some evidence that flushed pills don’t necessarily get cleaned out in sewage treatment plants, thus entering the rivers downstream from treatment, with ingredients potentially still active. I had heard about the drug pollution of the Pomperaug River in CT, downstream from Heritage Village, a major senior living community. Here’s an article about it, although I can’t vouch for the source: Drugging Our Waters.
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If I were to start looking for cost reductions, I might start by banning advertising of pharmas. If you watch the evening news regularly, it’s hard not to think you don’t have itchy-crawly restless leg syndrome while you can’t get a good night’s sleep thanks to Abe Lincoln and the Beaver, and you might be just about to have a heart attack or go into diabetic shock. The Center for Media and Democracy reports that the drug industry spent $4.2 billion advertising to consumers in 2005, a rate growing at about 20% per year. One of the major functions of this advertising is to create demand for the products. I’m sure there would be a legal challenge, but banning direct to consumer advertising would be the first place I would start. We’d all sleep easier, and the fish might benefit being off Prozac.
You can’t ban direct advertising. How about the emerging resistant strains and all of the antibiotics being dumped into urban septic systems from hospitals.
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Massachusetts politicians have been well aware of this for years, but we have a one party state so, Bulger, Finneran, DiMasi, Travaglini, and Murray call the shots. Guess who Trav is working for as a lobbyist? We get the government we deserve.
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Of course “you”* can, using any number of arguments.
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1. Public airwaves. If it isn’t in the public interest, it can’t go over public airwaves. This doesn’t do much for cable TV, but it’s splendid for broadcast NBC/CBS/ABC/etc. and for radio.
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2. FDA. There are already plenty of restrictions on advertisements for both prescription and non-prescription meds. Disclaimers, limits on promises, side effect disclosure, etc. It wouldn’t be anything but an extension of current regulation to prohibit naming any prescription drugs by chemical or shelf name — thereby limiting adverts to something like: “Do you have restless leg syndrome? Talk to your doctor about it, because we’ve just gotten FDA approval for a new drug that may help. Love, Pfizer.”
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they refer to as dtca (direct to consumer advertising).
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so all of those ‘ . . .ask you doctor about . .’ ads, which compound enormously the end cost of pharmaceuticals, as well as interfere with the work of the physician, are banned from the airwaves.
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but then of course, european sports fans may not be as cognizant of erectile dysfunction as american tv watchers.
Pharma ads, like all ads are protected speech in the United States. While the EU may in fact regulate these ads, in the US I think you would find it hard to do so.
all of the limits on “free speech” already directed specifically at Phrma, like those listed upthread?
you might want to pass this along to the networks and to the tobacco and liquor industries.
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they will be very happy to hear of this news.
I wonder if you could legally stop a liquor or tobacco ad from appearing on a purely cable system? Where no public airwaves are used?
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Oh and there are hard liquor ads now shown in the united states. That wasn’t an FCC regulation as much as a self policing.
You can’t ban direct advertising.
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The FCC could if it wanted to ban advertising for certain classes of products by entities that it licenses (broadcast radio and TV). Same for licensors of, for example, cable television.
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The FCC and other licensors could do so as a condition for the licensing.
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It would be considerably more difficult to ban direct advertising by print media, but that might also be possible. Not for newspapers. But sending magazines through the post office could be conditioned on their eschewing advertising of certain classes of products.
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It’s an academic issue, since limiting advertising in den USofA isn’t going to happen. There was a voluntary limitation about advertising hard alcohol products and tobacco products on broadcast media, but that was volutary and the alcohol limitation seems to be breaking down a bit.
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BTW, you can always tell what demographics a TV program is directed to, by paying careful attention to the mix of advertisers. TV network news in the USofA is obviously directed to the elderly, people who are sick, and people who can’t sleep. Pills. On the other hand, ComedyCentral’s Daily Show is obviously directed to people who do “vroom-vroom” (cars) and drink alcohol a bit, one hopes not at the same time.
Once more–maybe I didn’t make myself clear. The medication is in a blister pack, I thought I had made that clear. Each pill is identified through clear plastic on a white cardboard background. That is how they are shipped to medical facilities, hospital floors, etc. Do you have any idea what pharmaceuticals cost? I’m beginning to see the problem. There are some meds for osteoporosis that are $13.00 each. Lipitor is $3.00 ea. To get a med in a blister pack cost almost $5.00 whether there is one tab or 30. Cost of destruction? Let me see. You take the card, walk over to the toilet, and pop out the meds into the toilet. What do you figure a flush costs? The previous poster was referring to controlled meds ie benzo’s/narcotics. Where does that paperwork go? The great circular file in the sky, who knows. The point being is that millions in wasted pharmaceuticals are going down the crapper that could be spent in better places.
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You think this is ocurring once in a blue moon? It happens every day. I as a tax payer am outraged. I’ve been cited on state inspections for not disposing of medications immediately. The same medications that I will need tomorrow for another patient that gets started on it and there isn’t a starting dosage on hand.Then you have to get a special order with a courier and the cost is tripled.
For one thing, I wasn’t disagreeing with you.
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If the pills are safe for “recirculation”, then I’m all in favor of recycling them. If they are prescription meds, there’s going to be paperwork for disposing them and paperwork for recycling them — and certainly there’s more overhead to inspecting for safety and restocking than there is in flushing down a toilet. Still, when it’s both safe and cost effective to recycle, we ought to do so.
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What does the “flush” cost? Well, you’ve got to pay someone to gather all the meds to be flushed, to pop them out of the packets, (I’d expect) they have to document what was flushed, to process the paperwork, and to audit. This has to be done by people trained to handle pharmaceuticals — some pills require extreme care in larger doses, shouldn’t be touched by pregnant women, etc. Otherwise, you’re begging for a whole new source for ritalin, oxycontin, and others to end up on the street.
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What does the “recycle” cost? More. In addition to everything but the “deposit in toilet” phase of above, you’ve also got to ensure that the recycled pills are inspected for safety (expiration date, blister pack unaltered, etc) and then ship them to their storehouse, and restock them on the shelves.
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How often is it happening? Every day, to be sure. But, that wasn’t the point I raised. The point I raised was asking what percentage of pills (in dollar value) sold in MA end up in the toilet because the patient dies before completing the prescription? I’m guessing less than 1%. After all, people are on prescriptions for many many years and rarely have more than 1 to 3 months worth at a time.
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I’m not arguing against recovering that value, I’m merely suggesting that it isn’t a whole lot of value.
In the mean time, I humbly suggest that you maintain enough supply on the shelf so that you don’t need to rely on a currier or a dead guy to have sufficient supply.
OK. I’m not going to belabor this. You are functioning under the premise that this is a lot harder than it is.In one of my original postings I stated that we used to deep six $10,000.00 worth of meds each month in one facility and it must be twice that now.
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There is nothing magical or mysterious about pharmacy. You seem to think there are many convoluted checks and balances. There are not. Narcotics are disposed of with two signatures. Mine and a witness. As for these narcotics hitting the streets. I suppose if you want to throw a career and a license away for , I’m not exactly sure what , I suppose that’s an option.
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May I repeat once again. Meds are disposed of when it is dicontinued, the patient dies, the patient chooses not to take them, the patient is discharged.You are functioning on a preconceived notion that this is a rare occurance when the opposite is true.
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Of course there is. There’s training, licensing, security, and auditing. That’s substantial.
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If you want to start recycling drugs, then the people who are doing the recycling aren’t just off-the-street hires. They must be folks who have sufficient training and can demonstrate sufficient trust — whether they’re working inside a secure area (pharmacy, whatever) or outside of it (patients rooms in a rest home, etc). You acknowledge that those who would be doing this work are trained professionals by your “if you want to throw a career and a license away” comment.
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You continue to fail to acknowledge that I agree with the idea — just merely pointed out that it must cost more to recycle the drugs than to throw them out, so it will only make sense to recycle sufficiently costly drugs.
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So tell me this: what percent of prescription meds (in terms of dollars) are thrown out due to patient death or discharge? I fancied a guess based on the idea that most folks take prescriptions over a lifetime and only die at the end; furthermore it seems to me that there’s a huge percentage of prescriptions that aren’t taken in a hospital/care facility at all. It isn’t a “preconceived notion” — it’s a logical estimate.
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What’s yours? What percent (in terms of dollars) are thrown out due to patient death or discharge?
dweir, re: drug prices, the people of the U.S. should have a right to pay fair & reasonable prices for our meds, say, more in-line with what the rest of the industrialized world pays. I don’t think too many folks want to outright abolish the drug industry!
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And re your nephew w/leukemia. Great that he’s had good access to the care and meds he needs, that he’s done well, and I hope that continues.
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Don’t you get it? That’s what insurance is for, so that if it was your child you wouldn’t be stuck with a bare bones insurance policy that had you paying unfathomable sums out of pocket until you’re bankrupt, just trying to make sure your child gets the best healthcare that modern medicine can provide so that he can live. And that you and your family are
not holding bakesales to try and pay for your son’s chemo costs. That happens in this country and it’s a god-awful disgrace.
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btw We CAN BAN DTC (direct to consumer) DRUG ADVERTISING!!!! It was not even legal until a certaininterst group lobbied tomake it so. Gee, wonder who that was?…. Most other industrualized countries do not allow DTC drug ads–it’s not good public health policy.
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I just rcv’d the following link in an email from a health policy listserve with this promo: “Drug companies had a deep hand in steering the Medicare Part D prescription drug bill which has provided them with enormous profits. Steve Kroft reports on an “ugly” time in Congress.CBS News, 60 Minutes, 4/1/07 News Video
That’s a shock. I wonder how many Massachusetts congressional representatives are in bed with pharmaceutical companies?
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Our legislators rale against this and that and they are the first to have their hands out.Talk about a repugnant group of people.
“I wonder how many Massachusetts congressional representatives are in bed with pharmaceutical companies?”
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It would be even better if you helped dig up the answer! Seriously. There must be sources for this info. but I don’t know them off the top of my head. Perhaps Public Citizen has this data avail to the public.
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So before you lump in our reps in congress as “… a repugnant group of people” maybe you could dig up some facts to help answer this extremely important question. Thanks for raising it.
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p.s. it sure would be useful to know this data for the Pres. Candidates…(I wonder how mitt and hill got to their ~$25Mil fundraising totals)
Ted Kennedy’s money, 2006
Health: $684k
Total: $6,925k
Ratio: 10%
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John Kerry’s money, 2006
Health: $249k
Total: $9,145k
Ratio: 3%
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John Olver’s money, 2006
Health: $28k
Total: $596k
Ratio: 5%
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Richard Neal’s money, 2006
Health: $57k
Total: $530k
Ratio: 11%
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James McGovern’s money, 2006
Health: $45k
Total: $547k
Ratio: 8%
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Barney Frank’s money, 2006
Health: $18k
Total: $1508k
Ratio: 0%
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Marty Meehan’s money
Health: $21k
Total: $646k
Ratio: 3%
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John Tierney’s money
Health: $34k
Total: $476k
Ratio: 7%
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Ed Markey’s money
Health: $34k
Total: $803k
Ratio: 4%
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Michael Capuano’s money
Health: $40k
Total: $803k
Ratio: 5%
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Stephen Lynch’s money
Health: $32k
Total: $993k
Ratio: 3%
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Bill Delahunt’s money
Health: $24k
Total: $743k
Ratio: 3%
Now be wary: the “health” sector doesn’t include insurance, which is in the “Finance/Insurance/Real Estate” sector. Additionally, “Lawyer & Lobbyist” has it’s own category. Furthermore, different players in the health field have differing interests, so just be wary with drawing conclusions.
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Overall, it doesn’t appear that the health care field has much of a financial influence on MA’s congressmen in 2006 fund raising.
Even though i looked around the site and found this text “More detailed breakdowns of these broad sectors can be found in the chart that lists “top industries.”” I couldn’t find that chart nor figure out just who/what the “Health” sector includes. Could you post a link for that info? And I wonder, is there any way to break out health inurance co’s?
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One thing I did find is that Hillary Clinton’s “Health” sector contributions for the ’06 election cycle came in second to only one other politician’s, Rick Santorum…groan… Is this a case of
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If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! (thinking back to the demise of the Clinton health plan in ’94)
here’s the quote, emphasis mine.
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“Physicians and other health professionals are traditionally the largest source of campaign contributions in this sector, with pharmaceutical companies placing a strong but distant second. Similarly, HMOs and health services companies, are consistently generous givers.
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The increasing clout of these industries has helped them score a number of legislative and regulatory victories. President Bush signed Medicare reform legislation in November 2003 that benefited health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and a host of other health care interests. Many in the health sector are hoping to repeat that success as Congress considers medical liability legislation this session.”
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(source)
… hate the game. We have a system of legalized bribery for campaign finance. If you want to get into office and stay in office, you need that money. That’s why I support Clean Elections locally, and why this kind of thing intrigues me:
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Anything helps.
I would bet my life on it that the drug industry here in MA (and their nat’l “partners”) also has a role in the illegal killing of the MA citizens Health Care Amendment, b/c the HC Amendment seeks to establish a consitutional right to “affordable, equitably financed…prescription drugs”.
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To get a better understanding of what we’re up against w/PHarma et al, here are a few excerpts from an email just in via a med student in CA on the recent news coverage of this issue:
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Yeah, it’s a David and Goliath sturggle, but we’ve got to push back!!! To get involved with people-centered (as opposed to industry-centered) health reform locally, please consider signing on with the Alliance to Defend Health Care or MassCare, and for national reform work you can sign up with NYC-based group Healthcare-Now. Thanks.
The guy next door that works a double shift a Wyeth in Andover.
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The guy down the street that works at Biogen in Cambridge.
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The gal who used to babysit your kids that works in a research lab in Cambridge.
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The receptionist at the Venture fund in Cambridge that invests in drug discovery.
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Your old paperboy that toils in a lab in Devens.
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Big PHarma is right now driving the Massachusetts economy, and in case you haven’t realized it takes money and lots of dead ends to create drugs that save lives. If you take the monetary benefit for these companies out of the equation they will not create the drugs, which will not create the jobs, which will stifle the Massachusetts economy, and more importantly will end up to more people dying unneccesarily.
and using the “little guy” as cannon fodder to protect massive profits for shareholders and corporate executives?
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Just making sure I follow.
Are you implying with your “little guy” and “massive profits” rhetoric that government should intervene to reduce drug company profits?
that your shortsightedness going after “Big PhArma” may actually hurt the Massachusetts economy more than it helps.
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COLDHEARTED CONSERVATIVE ALERT!!!
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And have you ever considered that the reason that health care costs are spiraling is that people are living longer. Why are they living longer, because of advances in medicine and medicines. As we get older it is more costly to keep us alive. That doesn’t mean that I want to kill all the old people, but it does mean that there is a reason that health costs are spiraling. And that reason may be one of them.
The guy next door that works a double shift a Wyeth in Andover.
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The guy down the street that works at Biogen in Cambridge.
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The gal who used to babysit your kids that works in a research lab in Cambridge.
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The receptionist at the Venture fund in Cambridge that invests in drug discovery.
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Your old paperboy that toils in a lab in Devens.
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.
There is patent law in this country. You are allowed to get a patent and have exclusive use of your invention, whether it be a better mousetrap, or a life saving cure for a certain amount of time.
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If PhArma was kept out of the patent system, you would see none of the advances of the past decades with life saving drugs. That is a simple fact. It is not monopolistic.