CVS Limit Drugs Offered---Huge $ Making Scheme-Express Scripts,+500% Profit since 2003,

a reply to: rickymouse
It's the free market baby, if we pay, they charge. Everyone going after their own selfish ambitions.

Medical is an inelastic demand product, basically it means they can charge what they want and you will sell everything to pay.

A situation in which the demand for a product does not increase or decrease correspondingly with a fall or rise in its price. From the supplier's viewpoint, this is a highly desirable situation because price and total revenue are directly related; an increase in price increases total revenue despite a fall in the quantity demanded. An example of a product with inelastic demand is gasoline.

Read more: www.businessdictionary.com...

a reply to: rickymouse

You are right, the rise in healthcare and insurance costs are one reason why wages are not increasing.

A couple of dirty little secrets however... if your employer is large enough, they are not paying full retail price for your insurance plan. If they bring a large quantity of employees to the insurance company they are getting a substantial discount.

If the payouts in any one year exceed what the insurance providers consider "reasonable" according to their contract, they of course can increase the rate the next year to recoup. And your employer is fine with that, because they will either pass the cost on to you at open enrollment, or will decide there's no money in the budget for a wage increase, again.

I am all for being in the pool knowing my premiums are helping fellow colleagues pay for their life-saving treatments.

The middle-aged guy in the next department over who has torn his knee up three times playing soccer, and had 3 reconstructive surgeries as a result... he kind of irritates me. He pays for the first few thousand dollars for each surgery... the rest comes out of the pool. The first one, a few years ago, the total bills were between 10 and 20 thousand dollars. Last year, the total bills didn't quite crack the 100 thousand dollar mark, but it was damn close.

a reply to: seasonal

When I was in Pre-med back in the early seventies, there was a lecture about the economics of being a doctor. It was a course that had a different name but the instructor described the course as such in his initial presentation.

He said most people need doctors because they are not eating the right food so don't feel guilty about charging them when they come in because they are sick. He blamed the illness on the patient.

From years of research I am finding that his statement is correct. Nobody can eat everything, evolution is very important in how our bodies synthesize foods. Not all of us can eat the same foods, if we do try eventually we will get sick. Then new Fad Nutrition is making some people better but is making many people more sickly. The phrase "just think how bad you would feel if you hadn't altered your diet or taken this med" is most often a fallacy. Side effects from meds and even dietary changes are common. It takes generations of gradual change to change our bodies ability to eat new foods. Nutrition "experts" are making a lot of people sick.

I can't eat a lot of nitrogen foods even though I like green veggies. Now, I have been told by a lot of people to start eating more, it is good for me. That is a fallacy. I have also been told to eat foods to build my immune system so I won't get sick. I already have autoimmune issues in my genetics and I rarely get sick, why would I want to build my immune system.

To build my immune system by eating foods that do that would shortly mean I would need medications to stop autoimmune issues. I have tried some supplements and foods that boost immune function with horrible results. I also have taken meds that as a side issue actually suppress the immune system in various ways. That took research to uncover, the doctors and pamphlet did not tell you the meds did that. I found it by studying the medicine and the inert ingredients of the medicine. Inert is not inert, most of the fillers have some effect on the body. The medicines actually suppress immune response sometimes to keep you from going cytokine and sometimes they block our immune response to the med itself. It is in their design. So some meds increase your chance of getting infections both viral and microbial. Some food additives considered safe also do that. Food colorings, both natural and chemical do have properties that medicines have.

So remember, the reason we may need medicines is because we did not pay attention to the concerns of our grandparents and each generation is BSed a little more to trust in GRAS when in fact, GRAS is just a general recognization of safe for the MAJORITY of people. Fifty one percent is a majority.

They knew this back in the seventies when I was in Medical training, nothing has changed. It is the fault of the patient for believing half baked truths and misconceptions. Go talk to your grandparents and ask how their parents and grandparents ate, then try to comprehend that the FDA is tied to medical and Pharmaceutical science. Fad Nutrition is making us sick. We cannot just start altering food chemistry to extensive amounts, the enzymes we make vary from person to person.

A lot of medicine knowledge goes back thousands of years, the Pharmaceutical industry has just figured a way to make it expensive and make us ignorant of listening to our ancestors concerns.

a reply to: CantStandIt

We try to not do risky things because eventually the cost of doing them does cause problems. The risk takers cost us lots of money, and here is one more important thing to think about. In our schools they promote sports and stuff like rock climbing and other risky behavior which causes kids to go out and get hurt. Even America's funniest home videos causes kids and parents to do more risky things. Their kids might win ten thousand dollars if they get hurt.

Even the ice challenge caused a lot of injuries of people. Risky behavior is promoted and this can lead to higher insurance costs. I utilized necessary risk assessment all my life, I am not afraid of doing dangerous things. But I put safety first and assess things to see if it is wise to do them. I am a Licensed builder and I had to stop employees many time from doing risky things. I would do some of the most dangerous or health hazard jobs myself because I was the one who was responsible for taking the work. I have a clear conscience, my workers did not get any major accidents while I was in business, only a couple of cuts and one person got his back hurt but it healed up all right in three or four days. I had just warned him and another worker about doing a risky thing before he got hurt.

Risk assessment and paying attention is critical, injuries you get come back and haunt you in your older years most time.

a reply to: rickymouse
Please do a thread on this.... Or have you?

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: rickymouse
Please do a thread on this.... Or have you?

You know, I had a real hard time believing this at first even though I remembered the words of the instructor back then. I believed the people looking after our food were honest people who actually did inspect and test things. It was better back in the seventies than now, a lot of policies have changed in how food regulation is done. The regulating agencies do not test much anymore, third party assessment is done, the third companies get the orders on what to test for and how to test from the manufacturer of the chemicals. Physical government food inspectors are way down in big factories.

I have tried to inform people about this over the years, but I hate making threads. I study metabolism and how medicines work and also how food chemistry interacts with people's bodies and with genetics. It is time intensive to do this. I would rather not start threads anymore and spend time supplying evidence for the trolls and debunkers. Plus, Many of my findings are from studying many different processes in the body and are original assessments which then I go look for evidence to find if they are correct. If you word it right, you can find the evidence. The thing is it goes against what is accepted in society sometimes. Also, food chemistry is so complex that multiple properties or companion chemistry can alter the results.

You cannot say something is good by just taking one property it has, you have to consider companion chemistry and changes in epigenetics from ancestral eating habits.

Here is an example. Peanut butter can increase risk of kidney stones, but if you put it on bread which contains calcium it helps a bit. The Pectin in the Jam also lowers the risk of the peanut butter causing kidney stones and then add milk which has companion chemistry or coffee which has oxilate busting chemistry and there is no harm. Also, peanuts can actually trigger a mild histamine reaction which helps to cause the intestines to move more and get the bowls to empty quicker. Basically it can act as a laxative because of histamines, not fiber it contains. People look at fiber, and everyone is saying fiber this fiber that, that is really bad science. Some people can't get rid of fiber well, it causes problems, the whole wheat bread is worse often for many people than white on the peanut and butter sandwich in this example..

Heh, not one mention of Sherman or Clayton acts nor USC law violations that all other businesses have to comply with.

That's because medical industry as a whole has paid off local, state and federal politicians to carve out exemptions.

Remove exemptions and much of this goes away.

Any other business may NOT price fix, collude on pricing, charge different pricing, operate as monopolistic entity.

That's just a start as RICO should also apply.

Send a few of the most greedy to jail and confiscate all assets and this crap would come to screeching halt.

End result - truly affordable healthcare without need of insurance for routine care.

This also would balance federal budget that in 4-5 years will be overtaken by current rise in medical costs.

Folks its not just drug companies, it's the entire medical industry.

a reply to: Phoenix

Agreed!

Off the top of my head:

They have a captive audience, can't import your life saving drugs.

All prices are essentially the same.

AMA controls all the big expensive test equipment geographically to make sure there is no pesky competition.

Very, very odd billing structure, and impossible comunications to make sure consumer can't or gives up on settling cost of bill.

Networks that are ill defined to increase revenues.

Dr.s peak their heads in your hospital room and say hi, that counts as a consult.

Dr.s pay outrageous costs to belong to networks.

a reply to: rickymouse

I'm nowhere near as well-versed as you are, but with the bits of detailed research I've done on nutrition and endocrinology, i would like to take this chance to say I admire your work

The more I research, the more of a philosophical issue I have with the way we do medicine here in the US. It's getting so one-size-fits all, because the assembly line approach is cheaper per-person, supposedly.

In reality, you are correct that in more cases than not, it is making us sicker.

For example, how do the cholesterol-lowering drugs work as a class? In general, they suppress certain liver functions.

It would seem to me that a poorly functioning liver would be worse than high-cholesterol unless you also have several other risk factors or demonstrable cardiovascular issues, not just elevated numbers in a blood test. But we all know many people who are on the meds just because of the bloodwork results.

originally posted by: CantStandIt
a reply to: rickymouse

I'm nowhere near as well-versed as you are, but with the bits of detailed research I've done on nutrition and endocrinology, i would like to take this chance to say I admire your work

The more I research, the more of a philosophical issue I have with the way we do medicine here in the US. It's getting so one-size-fits all, because the assembly line approach is cheaper per-person, supposedly.

In reality, you are correct that in more cases than not, it is making us sicker.

For example, how do the cholesterol-lowering drugs work as a class? In general, they suppress certain liver functions.

It would seem to me that a poorly functioning liver would be worse than high-cholesterol unless you also have several other risk factors or demonstrable cardiovascular issues, not just elevated numbers in a blood test. But we all know many people who are on the meds just because of the bloodwork results.

One size fits all isn't quite keeping the cost of medicines down in the USA. The price of meds here is way higher than anywhere else.

Statins don't seem to be lowering cardiovascular risk and help prevent heart attacks, in fact.....www.newsmax.com...

Years ago they actually tried to make good medicines but lately the Pharma companies just jump where the money is and capitalize on anything that scientists find is possibly causing something. Here is an article from Wiki on statins. Read the last sentence under history. en.wikipedia.org... It says "The cholesterol controversy began in the early promotion of statins" Note it said early promotion, meaning it is a sales pitch.

Statins effect Q10 synthesis, a person should actually take a supplement. Statins suppress human squalene production. Yes, humans make their own squalene. It has important function in our body. www.cholesterol-and-health.com...

I deleted three paragraphs on this subject, too off topic. All I can say is most of the people I know who the doctor prescribed them to have quit because they couldn't think or remember things. A few I know handle them ok with no side effects.

I am a little OCD, I am obsessed at finding real cures for these things and to do that I need to identify what causes the problems to occur in the first place. What they are telling us we should eat will cause a lot of harm to some people.

Another thing, the doctors are not all greedy, they know that there are people who work at the hospitals and in their offices that are in need of a paycheck. If people were to get better, look how many people would be out of work. Over a quarter of our GNP is tied to the medical or Pharma industry somehow. Look at the nursing home employees, the people making the medical equipment or selling it, the pharmacists, the nurses and doctor office workers, technicians, and even people who clean their offices. It is not all greed, many people are in need of work.

If we got some more industry back into this country that paid a livable wage and had healthcare benefits, it would be better than keeping people sick. If we even made our own toasters, microwaves, and appliances it would be good. If we made our own power tools again it would be great. We can import some parts from China but we need to take care of our own here and not be increasing medical workers. Some Pharma companies are raking people over the coals, they are making side effects appear as normal when they are not. They are twisting the figures, just because they lump ten side effects under two percent doesn't mean that only two percent is the total. If ten symptoms are two percent, then that is twenty percent of people will have side effects. Figure some people have two and some are unreported because of various reasons. You still have at least ten to fifteen percent, then doctors are told to give another med to try to cancel out a negative effect. That leads to possibly more side effects and costs and more meds. The first med maybe should have been changed instead of patching up the body. Some doctors do if they understand things, but most don't totally understand why the side effects occur so just go with the pharma company's recommended add on.

I know people who are taking ten meds and they are going downhill faster with each medication. The added med does seem to help for a month and changes the symptom. The majority of negative side effects start after a month, people do not realize that, they do not even think about it. They believe the negative side effects are immediate. Healthcare is getting way too expensive we need to go to socialized medicine.

Meanwhile, somehow this whole system needs to be fixed.