NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE US.

A scary article appeared in the New York Times, yesterday. 

How a Chicago Woman Fell Victim to Candida Auris, a Drug-Resistant Fungus

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:

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!

RATIONING

I have spoken, on these pages, about the delivery of  Healthcare only to those who can afford it. In a land of such abundance as ours, this rationing is unconscionable. For a stark example, we need look no further than a heart clinic's recent letter to a woman seeking a heart transplant:

"Your medical situation was presented to our multidisciplinary heart transplant committee on Tuesday, October 20, 2018. The decision made by this committee is that you are not a candidate at this time for a heart transplant due to needing a more secure financial plan for immunosuppressive medication coverage. The committee is recommending a fundraising effort of  $10,000....We thank you for the opportunity to participate in your care." 

WTF?! 

This woman has been told to beg for $10K from GoFundMe, a crowd source where, I'm told,  one of three appeals is based on healthcare needs. and this in the United States where the plutocrats have more money than they know what to do with, and yet the leading cause of bankruptcy is healthcare bills.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is dead-on to decry GoFundMe as official policy: "Customers can die if they can't raise the goal in time - but sure, single-payer healthcare is unreasonable." 

Her sarcasm stems from her knowledge that Single payer is in fact the only reasonable healthcare proposal out there. It's based on the premise that there can be plenty of healthcare resources for all -- plenty of medicines, plenty of healthcare providers, and plenty of  money to pay them. Plenty, I say, with one big seemingly intractable exception:  organs for transplant. There are far more patients needing them than there are organs available, and that situation is not likely to change any time soon.

I have a personal interest in this, having inherited a kidney disorder which can lead to renal failure and dialysis, which could shorten my life substantially. By the grace of God, so far I am holding my own in this. Yet should I ultimately need dialysis, I'm sure I'd be better off in many other medical systems than the one under which we currently suffer.  

Eight years ago, there appeared in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY  an article which shook me up. It was called God Help You. You're on Dialysis. It began as follows:

Every year, more than 100,000 Americans start dialysis. One in four of them will die within 12 months—a fatality rate that is one of the worst in the industrialized world. Oh, and dialysis arguably costs more here than anywhere else. Although taxpayers cover most of the bill, the government has kept confidential clinic data that could help patients make better decisions. How did our first foray into near-universal coverage, begun four decades ago with such great hope, turn out this way? And what lessons does it hold for the future of health-care reform?

It goes on to detail how our dialysis programs are set up for corporate profit, at the expense of patient health, and contrasts it unfavorably with what it calls The Italian Solution, and singles out a town called Reggio Calabria,  dusty and poor, and whose hospital "has the tired grubbiness of a bus station," but whose unit for kidney patients is "world-beating," and concludes:

Other countries provide universal access to dialysis care, much like the United States. But some, notably Italy, have better patient survival and cost control. Italy has one of the lowest mortality rates for dialysis care—about one in nine patients dies each year, compared with one in five here. Yet Italy spends about one-third less than we do per patient.

It's really a terrific article -- though 8 years old, it's more timely than ever!
I recommend it heartily. Here's the link: God Help You. You're on Dialysis   After I read it I figured that if worst came to worst, I'd learn Italian!

But if we should get Single payer health care by that time, I wouldn't have to move abroad.  I might have to reconcile myself to the fact that a younger man with his life ahead of him would more likely to be allotted  a scarce kidney than would an 82-year-old like me. But I wouldn't have to shudder -- as I do now -- that the corporate blood-sucking ghoul of greed  would be stalking our hospital halls,  lurking in corners of our clinics, and standing drooling over the surgeon's shoulder as he cuts open a patient's chest to replace his heart.

Dio

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