I notice that we are not talking about Do Diabetes Pharma Companies Have a Monopoly? anymore! I thought about quoting the original posts to the topic at hand but found it to be a pita! LOL
Isn’t there another area for how to quote and reply do stuff like that around here?
Right, seems like all those post should be “flagged” as off topic.
Yes, you might not have noticed this but @irrational_John created a new topic “How to quote and reply and stuff like that” on how to do all that stuff. That is really the way to change the subject. Ideally this topic should continue to berate the Pharma companies for exerting a monopoly on us poor diabetics. Thanks iJohn.
ps. To create and see a linked topic, hover your mouse over the post and you will normally see the text “Reply as Linked Topic” appear. Click that to create a linked topic. When there is a linked topic the title of the linked topic will also appear, in this case “How to quote and reply and stuff like that.”
Brian, I’ve never been on a forum that has “reply as linked topic” and after reading your instructions 3 times, I still have no clue what the purpose is, nor how to do it. I feel dumber than usual. 
BTW, I’ve been on countless forums since 1996…
I think iJohn started the topic about how to do replies etc here so we could stay on topic here about Pharma Companies - here’s how Discourse explains it:
"You don’t want to interrupt this conversation, but a post just reminded you of a related topic you’d like to share.
No problem! Use “Reply as new topic” to start a related conversation – and both topics will be visibly connected together."
#Just so you know …
Never mind. The bug described below should be fixed now. The links should “just work”.
###There is currently a “bug” which occurs when clicking on the link Discourse provides to a “linked topic”.
If/when you get the error message "The page you requested doesn't exist or is private", refreshing that page with the error message should take you to the linked topic.
There is a bit more of a description of the bug, including a screenshot of the error message, in this reply to Brian’s “Creating and Visiting Linked Topics” linked reply discussion topic which he just created.
I see reply as linked topic. where is reply as new topic? this site is confounding!!
Interesting article on drug costs.
I watched this on 60 minutes. Very interesting on drug costs.
Thanks, Jim, for sharing that link. The cost of those drugs is emotional blackmail. Families want to do everything they can to keep their loved ones with them. Drug companies know this.
As a Canadian diabetic living in British Columbia I do not pay anything for insulin, diabetes medications or testing equipment or renewables. I believe that is due to the wonderful forsight of a politician back the last century called Tommy Douglas, who introduced Canadians to Universal Medicare. Americans who continue to vote for right wing politicians who consider universal access to health care to be some kind of communist plot, deserve every trip they make to the cash registers. To everyone else, good luck!
But, at the same time, despite the Red Leaf Guards, we’ve heard from our Canadian friends how PWD there have many limitations, limited or out of pocket CGMs, no pumps for T2, challenges getting appointments with useful doctors, etc. I think we’ve heard kind of the same thing from folks in the UK, Germany and other countries with National Health Care systems.
I don’t think the price of medications can be laid solely at the feet of the evil right wing. One of big issues is medicare can’t negotiate drug prices. Either party could fix that issue.
I’ve also heard stories about people who can’t get everything that they want on our Canadian universal health care system and may have to endure wait times to see certain specialists. For some of those people the solution is to go to a private clinic either here or in the US and pay out of pocket or from whatever insurance they’ve purchased. For the rest of us on PWD here in Canada it is quite the consolation that all meds, insulin and testing supplies as well as visits to the doctors, specialists or emergency are free, as were a pair of $4,000 hearing aids I was issued a few months back. I’ve also had some visits to emergency in hospital following a cardiac arrest five years ago and was very impressed with the wonderful care I received, no question about paying for anything. I have to admit that the only gripe I have is that the “free” dental care I receive as a person with disability doesn’t include what is considered fancy procedures like root canals or bridges, it’s usually extractions only. However, in many cases those situations are highly preventable with good personal hygiene and care. So given a choice between arguing with a private insurance company about whether I get to live or die, or putting up with a six month wait for a hip replacement, I’ll take the wait time anytime.
A good article on the high price of insulin.
after reading this thread, i can only feel discusted w/ our american med policies and pharmaceutical lack of control over the cost of our meds. particularly insulin, b/c it is life saving and life essential. i am on medicare and i have a co-
pay of $200 for 2 vials of novolog. i called the customer service dept to find out if they provided patients w/ any sort of financial assistance for us Ds whose lives depend upon their products. the answer was a flat out “NO. sorry”
every time i see my endo, i request samples, samples, samples. my doc is very generous, so i am relieved every time i can get some insulin for free. however, this does not excuse the failure in our current system; and, if my endo has that many insulin samples, god only knows how many other endos have similar situations. and all their samples are free by way of the insulin companies reps.
But what about economies of scale? Back when refrigerators were first invented, the cost was over one-year’s pay for the average family. Now, they have not only gotten bigger, better, and more energy efficient - refrigerators that is.
Should we be excited or scared?
Clinton wants Medicare, the U.S. government’s health insurance program for the elderly, to be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices and require more generous rebates, driving down overall costs.
This would help. The Medicare Part D coverage for prescriptions was a government big wet kiss for Big Pharma when the law was passed in 2003 and implemented in 2006. While the Veterans Administration can and does bargain with the pharmaceutical companies using its rightful market power as a volume buyer, Medicare Part D specifically excluded this bargaining on the part of the government. The “free marketeers” only like it when market forces swing their way.
Great article on drug costs. Interesting points in the artcle:
–“Very often, the original discovery occurs in a university lab with public funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), then licensed to a start-up company partly owned by the university and then to a large company.”
–“There is very little innovation at the big drug firms. Instead, their major creative output is trivial variations of top-selling medications that are already on the market (called “me-too drugs”), to cash in with treatments just different enough to justify new patents.”
–“But the pharmaceutical market is hardly an example of unfettered capitalism, because the companies are totally dependent on government support. In addition to receiving huge tax breaks and government-granted exclusive marketing rights, they are permitted to acquire drugs that resulted from NIH-funded university research.”
–“About half of the major drug companies are European, including the makers of Avastin and Gleevec. But their research arms are often located in the United States, not only because this is their profit center but because they want to be near universities that receive generous NIH funding, in order to develop close relationships with the researchers.”