NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE US.
A scary article appeared in the New York Times, yesterday.
The fungus that killed her, Candida Auris, has a frightening ability to mutate and develop resistance to any drug deployed against it. The Times wrote: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of people who contract the illness die within 90 days.
This is scary enough. Even scarier is the likelihood, if we judge by Ezekiel J. Emanuel's recent article in The Atlantic Monthly -- that Big Pharma doesn't intend to anything about it.
Big Pharma’s Go-To Defense of Soaring Drug Prices Doesn’t Add Up
Why? According to Emanuel, Pharmaceutical manufacturers would rather concentrate on anti-cancer medications, which make much more money for them -- even though they may extend life only for a few weeks:
This is scary enough. Even scarier is the likelihood, if we judge by Ezekiel J. Emanuel's recent article in The Atlantic Monthly -- that Big Pharma doesn't intend to anything about it.
Big Pharma’s Go-To Defense of Soaring Drug Prices Doesn’t Add Up
Why? According to Emanuel, Pharmaceutical manufacturers would rather concentrate on anti-cancer medications, which make much more money for them -- even though they may extend life only for a few weeks:
Consider antibiotics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks antibiotic-resistant infections as one of the nation’s top health threats. An estimated 2 million Americans become infected with such bacteria each year, and 23,000 die. A superbug that is resistant to all known antibiotics is an imminent threat. Yet because antibiotics are generally cheap, for most pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies they are not a primary focus. The Pew Charitable Trusts reports that only about 41 new antibiotics with the potential to treat serious bacterial infections were in clinical development for the U.S. market in March 2017.
If disease resistant microbes do not present as rosy a profit picture as cancer drugs, what chance have we to expect development of a drug to combat a disease resistant fungus whose main victims seem to be the aged, and those with compromised immune systems?
Once again, the possibilities for big profits trump -- forgive the expression -- the public good. Big Pharma is sitting in the catbird seat -- granted monopolistic rights by our government, which has ruled that Medicare may NOT negotiate prices with drug makers. They can charge whatever they want -- and they do. An indecent number of our legislators have been bought and paid for by the medical-industrial establishment. Do you suppose that these bought-and-paid-for lawmakers want to harm the geese that lay for them so many golden eggs? Don't hold your breath waiting.
Speaking of eggs, the time is coming for Easter and Passover, when we recall the miraculous events heralding salvation -- the Hebrew people being rescued from a cruel despot who thinks he's God, and -- millennia later -- Jesus' rising from the tomb. I know more about the former tradition, being raised in it. What interests me is that God remembered His promise to the Israelites only when they, as one person, cried out to Him because of their pain. Before that, apparently, they thought that their enslavement was the natural order of things, just as many of us today are content to put up with the chancy corporate insurance that makes us afraid to leave our current employment -- making us, in effect, wage slaves.
What can free our healthcare from the cruel tyranny of profits? I wouldn't count on any supernatural occurrences. But if we all, every man, woman, and child, could rise up and cry out as one person: ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT -- WE WON'T TAKE IT ANY MORE! -- that would be miracle enough, and it just might do it.
I wish a sweet Passover to those for whom, like me, it is meaningful, and to my Christian friends, a happy Easter. May all our deeds bring blessing.
Dio
PS: If you'd like to leave a comment -- and I encourage you to do so -- simply click on the "number of comments" area, and share your thoughts in the "comment rectangle" that appears.
PPS: We know that there are plenty out there who have stories to tell -- stories of your trying to cope with our dysfunctional healthcare system. Trouble is, we don't know what these stories are! That's where you come in. If you have a story to tell, you can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. You can be as anonymous as you like. Thanks!
PPS: We know that there are plenty out there who have stories to tell -- stories of your trying to cope with our dysfunctional healthcare system. Trouble is, we don't know what these stories are! That's where you come in. If you have a story to tell, you can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. You can be as anonymous as you like. Thanks!
When Rural Hospitals Close, More Than Health Care Is Lost
ReplyDeleteAt least 95 have closed their doors since 2010, and roughly a quarter of the ones left are at risk of shuttering.
GOVERNING
Health & Human Services
https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-rural-hospital-closure.html
When Rural Hospitals Close, More Than Health Care Is Lost
At least 95 have closed their doors since 2010, and roughly a quarter of the ones left are at risk of shuttering.
by Mattie Quinn | April 2019
If you live in a rural area, there’s a good chance that the nearest hospital is in a precarious financial situation. According to the consulting firm Navigant, at least 21 percent of the nation’s rural hospitals are at high risk of closure; iVantage, a health analytics firm, describes 27 percent of the hospitals as “vulnerable.” Indeed, at least 95 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, according to the University of North Carolina’s Sheps Center for Health Services Research.
The problems are complex and multifaceted. Continued out-migration, low health-care reimbursement rates and increasingly complex health needs in rural America are among the factors contributing to a problem
with no easy solutions.
Medical markets follow the money and the Physicians and Hospitals follow the Markets.
Concentration is urban areas is not considered more than a consequence of economic finance and business as usual. The insinuation is that the poor rural areas simply can't afford doctors, so the problem is external to society...not a "MARKET FAILURE" of accountability.
Their answer is a growing "technological fix" under the space age "PROGRESS" of "telemedicine" to the rescue. This grand schema is growing to be a new financial boom, not to any rural plan of authentic services. but to the Urban centered systems that will call in your care using smart phones and more EZ pass revenue for the distant provider. What could go wrong?
NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE US.
Dig Deeper:
ReplyDeleteInterventions with the best intentions are profit driven medical markets and are already facing corruption:
Appropo to the question of 'telemarketing' into the gap created by malignant rural healthcare being essentially bankrupted by concentrated exclusionary capital market demands..., captured by electronic technology for profiteering?
we see the potent future can't wait for cyberspace opportunism. Telemedicine?
What could possibly go wrong with this space age techno-marketing?
https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/hhs-charges-dozens-in-1.2b-telemedicine-dme-fraud-scheme
HHS Charges Dozens in $1.2B Telemedicine, DME Fraud Scheme
HHS is charging 24 individuals in one of the largest healthcare fraud schemes involving telemedicine and durable medical equipment companies.
Source: Thinkstock
By Jessica Kent
April 16, 2019 - One of the largest healthcare fraud schemes investigated by the FBI and HHS and prosecuted by the Department of Justice resulted in $1.2 billion in losses and charges against 24 executives of telemedicine and durable medical equipment (DME) companies.
Officials are also taking legal action against 130 DME companies that submitted over $1.7 billion in claims and were paid over $900 million.
The alleged scheme involved the payment of illegal kickbacks and bribes by DME companies in exchange for medical professionals to refer Medicare beneficiaries for medically unnecessary back, shoulder, wrist, and knee braces.
NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE US. But the bill is in the mail.
Press Release
ReplyDeletehttps://openmarketsinstitute.org/releases/open-markets-calls-ftc-block-largest-pharmaceutical-merger-history/
Open Markets Calls on FTC to Block “Largest Pharmaceutical Merger in History”
April 16, 2019
Washington, D.C. — Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. won shareholder approval last Friday for its $74 billion takeover of Celgene Corp., closing “the largest pharmaceutical merger in history” and creating “a cancer-drug giant”, according to Bloomberg.
Open Markets calls on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block this deal. “The American pharmaceutical industry is already highly concentrated which has resulted in soaring drug prices and declining innovation,” said Open Markets Editorial and Policy Director, Phillip Longman. Open Markets echoes the concerns of Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) who have called on the FTC to investigate the consequences of this mega-merger.
Allowing these to corporations to combine would further diminish competition, reduce patient treatment options, and give Bristol-Myers monopolistic pricing power. It would also give Bristol-Myers the market power to block the access of more affordable substitutes. Moreover, the cost of the acquisition itself threatens to increase prescription prices.
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have declared they want pharmaceutical prices to go down. The FTC must do its job and protect the well-being of American citizens by blocking this mega-merger
This is REAL TIME: Can you DISTINGUISH between "good intentions" & premises; & the literal "BOTTOM LINE"
ReplyDeleteADVERTISEMENT:
Telehealth2019
June 6-7, 2019 • Atlanta, GA
Telemedicine and Intensive Care - Designing an Effective eICU Program
Faced with limited resources, rural and remote hospitals are forging eICU partnerships
to improve care management. Learn how an effective hub-and-spoke network helps
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while the larger hospital can extend its talent and create a new business line.
...Said the Spider to the fly....
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