giving away your money while you die...

18,000 Americans are needlessly left to die because drug companies feel they need to make 18 cents on the dollar...well beyond healthy profit and well into disgusting profiteering. this has been admitted by Pfizer VP Peter Rost. and in response...the Bush administration pushes Canada into forcing legislation through that would close the "loophole" used by countless Americans that cannot afford medicine to get the drugs they need to survive. afterall...gotta protect that bottom line of Big Drug...

speaking of Big Drug...you and I pay for roughly 1/3 of all research and development. and what is our prize for this generous gift to Big Drug? we pay several times more for medicine compared to any other nation on the planet. they are full of shit when they tell you they need to make 18 cents on the dollar to pay for research and development (because after they pay out their bit for R & D they still are making that 18 cents on the dollar...even after they spend by far more on marketing than on R & D). just like Big Oil, you and I are subsidizing Big Drug to rip us off...

speaking of Big Drug ripping us off...don't forget that this administration and its hacks cared so much about life that while they were bitching about terri shiavo they slipped something into the prescription drug plan that wouldn't let the government behave like a normal business (ironically, seems to be the same people who bitch and moan about the government not acting like a business) and negotiate for medicine in bulk. so there goes tens of billions of our tax dollars a year right into the pockets of Big Drug...

and as long as we are throwing our money at Big Drug for no good reason and at the expense of Americans, why not also do it at the expense of Africans. Bush's grant to fight AIDS in Africa...well, only if they refuse to buy generic drugs...meaning only a fraction of the people that could be saved by that money will be...all so that Big Drug can get another gift of American taxpayer money...

I was recently accused of class warfare for pointing out the above...for pointing out that the supposed "best health care system" in the world leads to higher infant death rates and a lower life expectancy than just about any nation in Europe...but we still got Slovakia nailed. so fuck the 15 percent of Americans now without health insurance...essentially shut out of the health care system all together. yea...our system is fucking fantastic...if you are a rich fat cat. try telling the families of those 18,000 people that died unnecessarily last year how we have the best health care in the world.

well...we are number one at one thing...profiteering in the health care industry. Big Drug is joined by Big Insurance is gouging everyone...doctors included. yea, they love to tell you all about how the reason health care costs so much is because of those outrageous jury awards...there's only one problem. in state's with a cap on jury awards...Big Insurance charges higher premiums to docs than in those without. and jury awards/suits filed are declining anyhow. but Big Insurance still needs the money...hell, they spend tens of millions yearly lobbying...gotta get that money somewhere.

we don't need this fascist groove thing...New Whigs. We are you.