Trumps: White Angry Middleclass

[Williamsmith]

To the extent that government is in the pocket of lobbyists I would agree with you. To the extent that we should just burn the barn down and start over, I would agree with you. But right now, I have no problem with government limiting the "how high can we go" profit-above-patients approach of some pharmaceutical companies.

Well, I have been in some predicaments where the proper tool just was not available and had to use what I had on hand. So if we can just back our way out of the room an inch at a time. And in that way reverse the process......I would use government to do that.

I delivered an inhaler to a rehabilitation facility. The client had been discharged or signed themselves out. The nurse sent it back to the pharmacy and said.."Well, that $500 we just saved."

I recently found a letter addressed to my dad two days after my birth, from the local hospital.
Room and Board.....$19
Laboratory.............$12
Drugs...................$.040
Total. $31.40

My dad likely made median income that year which according to the Department of Commerce was $5400. The hospital bill represented .6% of his annual income.

Last years median income was oddly enough $54,000. .6% would be $324. According to a CNN article, the average cost to have a baby last year was anywhere from $1,200 to $12,000 with a median or around $4,500. Not including specialists who bill separately.

Yeah, we got a big problem. Suppose we check out what we were doing in 1959 and head that direction.

[LDAHL]

You're cracking me up!

Did you hang around lefties a lot in college? You sure know how to ape us! Very authentic-sounding!

Some of my best friends are Bolsheviks.

I would say that when I went to college the student body was probably two-thirds left of center and the faculty maybe 80%. From what I understand those percentages have increased considerably over the intervening years. But even in those days, wearing an ROTC uniform on drill days marked the true non-conformists.

[Ultralight]

Some of my best friends are Bolsheviks.

I would say that when I went to college the student body was probably two-thirds left of center and the faculty maybe 80%. From what I understand those percentages have increased considerably over the intervening years. But even in those days, wearing an ROTC uniform on drill days marked the true non-conformists.

Very interesting!

I read a study in college that showed that when liberals go off to college they are likely to stay liberal. The same study tracked conservatives.

Apparently when conservatives go to college over a third will end up liberals by graduation.

[LDAHL]

Very interesting!

I read a study in college that showed that when liberals go off to college they are likely to stay liberal. The same study tracked conservatives.

Apparently when conservatives go to college over a third will end up liberals by graduation.

You have to admire the two-thirds who resist the ministrations of the Thought Police.

[JaneV2.0]

I believe the profit motive has made our health care system rotten to the core--but you knew that about me. Pharma sets the prices and the insurance companies call the shots in how drugs are used. Doctors are just gatekeepers who mostly go along with the process.

I remember reading in a newsmagazine probably thirty years ago that the establishment was optimistic that more women graduating from medical school would mean more tractable doctors who would go along unquestioning. Now with the (empty) threat of lawsuits and the innovation-stifling "best practice" orthodoxy, most doctors walk the line or bail out.

Meanwhile, this is the most (over)medicated country in history--and if patients dare to refuse (often useless and dangerous) drugs, they are called "con-compliant" and/or "fired" by their health care provider. Where non-pharmaceutical interventions might work, drugs are routinely pushed on the unwitting or helpless--often children and old people.

I'd like to see a grass-roots movement to challenge this, but given the huge amounts of money involved, I can't imagine a scenario in which it could happen.

[Ultralight]

You have to admire the two-thirds who resist the ministrations of the Thought Police.

I like to think these naive young conservatives come to college, are exposed to good ideas, and they merely recognize and adopt them because they make sense.

[LDAHL]

I like to think these naive young conservatives come to college, are exposed to good ideas, and they merely recognize and adopt them because they make sense.

I wonder how much of the programming they retain, say ten years after college.

[Ultralight]

I wonder how much of the programming they retain, say ten years after college.

I'd like to know as well. If they retain much of it, then we know that college is a fairly good assembly line for constructing (reconstructing?) liberals.

[Williamsmith]

I like to think these naive young conservatives come to college, are exposed to good ideas, and they merely recognize and adopt them because they make sense.

Fortunatley few of them are in Law Enforcement. Unfortunately a few of them are prosecutors, particularly in Baltimore.

[Ultralight]

Fortunatley few of them are in Law Enforcement. Unfortunately a few of them are prosecutors, particularly in Baltimore.

What do you mean?