Re: OT: Bush Thumbs His Nose at Conference on Aging

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 04:40:58 GMT, brickbat <brickbat@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>In article <1m69q11ar7e524l2g9khcmuv0b395810mn@xxxxxxx>,
> Mitch <mitch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 22:31:41 GMT, brickbat <brickbat@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> >In article
>> ><Phaedrine.Stonebridge-16EC50.14000917122005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> > Phaedrine <Phaedrine.Stonebridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >
>> >> <http://mediamatters.org/items/200512160001>
>> >>
>> >> News outlets ignored Bush's absence from aging conference, instead
>> >> reported on Medicare press event
>> >>
>> >> Summary: Major news outlets ignored President Bush's decision not to
>> >> attend the once-a-decade White House Conference on Aging, where,
>> >> according to the Palm Beach Post, he was the target of "a stinging
>> >> rebuke" and where delegates refused to embrace "the Medicare drug law or
>> >> Bush's call for private Social Security investment accounts." Outlets
>> >> focused instead on Bush's speech at a Virginia event designed to promote
>> >> the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
>> >
>> >He probably was front and center for the "White House Conference on
>> >Boondoggles for the Pharmaceutical Industry". Trouble is, it was held in
>> >Cheney's office.
>>
>> This is what happens when people get the idea that it's a right to
>> have other people pay for their medicine. Want to see drug prices go
>> down? Make people write a check at the counter. They'd drop 50%
>> overnight. Probably more.
>
>They would go down substantially if the FCC wouldn't permit the glut of
>advertisements to promote drug use. They would also be reduced if
>Medicare was granted the right to negotiate or shop drug prices.

Oh, so you want to restrict the right of private businesses to market
their legal products? I can't stand the commercials either, but I'm
not rushing out to by Lunestra because I saw a commercial. Besides,
the side effects listed in those ads are enough to make me think twice
about taking Tylenol now.

Medicare should be allowed to "shop" for better prices, not that this
is possible within such a inefficient organization. You can write all
the laws and regulations you want, the only sure way to get prices
down is to have customers paying directly for goods and services.

>BTW, the "other people", I've found are usually lucky to be in a nation
>that offers the potential for capitalists, intrapreneurs, creative
>individuals, greedy bastards, money maters, inheritors and other
>"successful" individuals to gain and accumulate wealth.

Lucky indeed. Ah, the American way.

>In Europe, your
>wealth would certainly be taxed much more heavily.

One more reason why I'm happy to have been born and raised here, in
the greatest nation ever seen in the history of mankind.

>But, rather than be
>thankful for your success, you tend to be greedy and resentful of others
>who are less successful. After running across a number of wealthy with
>the same perspective, I begin to be as resentful against them as you are
>against the poor.

I'm only resentful of an attitude that somehow we've come to a point
where people feel they have a right to other people's pocketbooks, and
that such thought is considered virtuous and enlightened.

>The only rainbow on the horizon is that Bush is fucking up so bad, he is
>going to screw the GOP pooch on this reverse Robin Hood agenda.

If poor people have so little, how can they have anything taken away
that amounts to anything substantial? You've seen the figures. Tax
wise, it's something like the bottom 50% pay only 4% in income taxes.
Hardly stealing.

>> I'm scrambling now over this new Medicare drug mess as now the
>> government is requiring pharmacies to maintain original prescriptions
>> for ten years instead of three. Our software is designed to hold this
>> info for three, so now we have to come up with some plan to scan these
>> thousands of daily scripts and store them effectively while trying to
>> train entire staffs how to do this without having to hire an extra
>> person per store just to serve this latest bureaucratic boondoggle. Of
>> course, the chain could purchase 1/4 million dollars of new software,
>> licenses, another 1/2 mil for new equipment, and a few hundred
>> thousand dollars or possibly much much more to re-train it's staff on
>> the new software. No biggie, it's all cool as long as people over 65
>> get their free goodies because they didn't plan accordingly all their
>> lives for older age.
>>
>The third world does it right - the aristocrats in gated communities and
>the poor, starving in the streets?

Most poor nations do not embrace capitalism, that's the problem.

>> This is far more of a problem, a real problem, to real businesses,
>> increasing costs to real people, than some ideological argument about
>> government turning into a Mullah's paradise over some compromised
>> phone calls between terrorists. So, next time your prescription goes
>> up in cost and you're required to pay more (and you will in some way
>> even if you don't realize it) remember that many pharmacies had to
>> purchase Minolta/Konica C250 scanners at 10k apiece, and the staff to
>> run them, and the geeks to manage the data and to store large amounts
>> of data just in case some overpaid government worker walks in one day,
>> flashes a badge, and demands to see that the pharmacy is in compliance
>> with the latest rules, even if there has not been a single complaint
>> or reason for the visit aside from the job itself.
>>
>The industry wrote this bill with our government just rubber-stamping.
>Now they cry over it? Maybe it was the manufacturers who made the big
>contributions and not the retailers? Maybe it was the computer /software
>industry? Who knows, maybe you're making a buck on it. Isn't that how
>Ross and EDS make billions, on record keeping for Medicare?

Don't know who did what, don't really care. I can tell you that small
business pharmacies didn't do it however. I can tell you that you will
pay for it in increased prices. Happens every time when free market
rules get tossed aside. I can tell you that we'll figure out a way to
continue no matter what is tossed our way, but rest assured that you
will pay for it in some way, and it will cost far more than directly
paying for the same bottle of pills.

>And *everybody* hates this bill. It has no defenders except in the
>industry and the White House.

I assure you that the retail pharmacy industry hates it as well. We
can't even figure out what to tell anyone about the new Medicare D. Oh
well, when you expect your medicine for free, I guess you just have to
do a little research on your own I suppose. We even set up a dedicated
new computer in each store with shortcuts to different websites
addressing the options trying to help seniors make the proper
decision. But hey, we're just greedy intrapreneurial money mating
bastards who just happened to invest our collective wealth of a
whopping 20K 15 years ago and put it all on the line and took a risk.

>> Yeah, I'm pissed, my Chargers are toast this year it appears!
>> Quentin Jammer sucks.
>
>St. Louis would be lucky to be toast.

Don't follow the NFC as closely. What happened to Bulger? Injury? He
looks like a decent productive QB. Get some defensive help in the
offseason and I don't see Seattle doing as well next year. I mean,
you've got SF and Arizona in your division for crying out loud! :)



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