i voted

I VOTED

as soon as we got our drivers license a few weeks ago
we were able to register to vote

in the mail came a ballot a few days later
this election voting here was all via mail in ballots

now new to the area we werent up to the politics
of the area

some of the things i voted on
some i didnt
but
i voted

i
signed the ballot
licked the envelope
popped it in the mail

as the results came out
last night
i like usually was
on the winning side of some issues
and
on the losing side on others
but
i voted

a lot of folks didnt vote
so
if i hear them whining
ill ask did you vote
they say no
ill raise my hand
and
say
talk to the hand

as i was reviewing some of the national votes
one that stood out for me
was in maine
it tends to be a republican independent state
it has a republican governor
its a different state than the rest of the states

it has a bad opioid problem

on the ballot
was the forcing of the state to accept the medicaid
expansion that the governor had refused to accept
a lot of medicaid funding goes to drug rehab programs
for the opioid addicted folks
without some type of intervention
a lot of folks are dying

i wonder if other states will do the same
personally i think big pharma should foot some of the bill
since they are the ones that pushed these powerful drugs
on unsuspecting patients
sort of a sin tax or its your fault tax

then
i noticed in one state a referendum requiring that
state programs only have to pay what the va pays
for their drugs
the va gets to competitively bid and limit what they pay

should be a no brainer
right
nope
it lost
just like in other states

we all complain about drug prices
why dont these pass
its the amount of money the drug companies put into
the campaigns against these referendums
does that make those who voted against it
no better than the politicians that take the drugs companies
political contributions

then
there was this graph i saw on line
it showed the voters based on their political beliefs
on the left the blue side
on the right the red side
they seemed to be equal
where the graphs overlapped in the middle
it was purple

it makes you realize thats where most of us are
its where the elections are won
in the middle
the middle seems to move to the blue or red side
differently each year

the other was a graph
that showed those who voted democrats are highest
amongst women
amongst non white folks
those who voted republican are highest
amongst white men

this could decide which way our country goes
in the future
since the non white numbers will continue to climb
the women and men numbers wont probably change much

it will be interesting to see how the political parties
will change themselves to survive in this trend

the solution to our political problems also may be
to allow only women to run government

also
i have found the solution to ending mass murders
only allow women to own and use guns

use it as a pay back for all those hundred of years women werent
allowed to vote
it would save lives and allow our government to run better

the organicgreen doctor

big pharma makes money off us

BIG PHARMA MAKES MONEY OFF US
after i read the article
i went and looked in my medicine cabinet
to see if they were making money off me

i think they are
or
should i say they were

in my cabinet i found these two meds


webmd.com

prednisilone
i use them 1 drop a day in my affected eye to
control chronic iritis
without them for a few days
the eye turns real red and is painful like you get
if you scratch your cornea
plus i get bad headaches and marked fatigue
so
i put a drop in once a day and it keeps this under control

this stuff comes at a cost of $75 a bottle
thats with insurance and it is generic

so it seems what the drug companies do with eye drops is
they make the drops too big
i guess by making the hole bigger or putting more medicine in
each drop

i notice when i use them the eye is full and a lot runs down my face
so i have to wipe off quite a bit thats wasted

it seems its made that way
so you have to buy twice the volume you need
so that my $75 a bottle could be a smaller $37.50 one

thats money in the big pharmas pocket
they basically double the amount of the drug thats sold
doubling their money

solution
there is a microdrop that can be made to put less drug in a drop
or
i guess you could just find an eye drop bottle with a smaller hole

wonder if i could try that
i plan to research it
if i find a smaller hole bottle ill just transfer my prednisilone into
the smaller hole bottle
maybe i wont waste any anymore
plus
ill save money doing it


webmd.com

then
theres my blood pressure medicine
irbesartan thats brand name avapro
after moving here for some reason i had to drop my dose some
maybe since its so laid back relaxing living here
plus i have lost a few lbs

i pay about $15 a month for the 150 mgm tablet
which now i break in half
my blood pressure is well controlled on this dose
i have now cut my cost in half
and
sorry big pharma
i just cut your profits a little bit

then
thinking about the experimental infusion i get
the aducanumab
it could be on the market in around 5 years
at a cost of $40,000 a year
thats $3333 each month for the infusion

lets just say the dose for people adjusted for age weight height
memory loss etc ranges from 2.5 mg to 5 mg to 7.5 mg to 10 mg

lets just say i have to take 5 mg a month
the cost of the 10 mg dose vial since that is the only one thats made
is $6667 a vial

so when i go in they take out 5 gm out of the vial and throw the other
5 mg away
thats $3333 thrown away in the trash
i pay $6667 for my infusion drug
the big pharma makes an extra $3333 on each treatment thats given

a solution would be to make a 2.5 mg vial a 5mg vial a 7.5 mg vial
a 10 mg vial
the price of the 2.5 mg vial would be $1667

so you can see how big pharma doubles their income like the eye drop
folks do with each treatment

now i dont know if the aducanumab will be done that way
probably not
but
a lot of cancer drugs given as infusions are packaged in just one dose
but folks dont all get the same dose
the extra is just chunked in the trash
but the patient pays for all of it

they use to make different dose vials or a multidose vial that could be
used on several folks

these tricks with the eye drops and the cancer infusions are costing us
or our insurances billions and billions of dollars each year

cant this be fixed

the organicgreen doctor

not yet

NOT YET



its not made a name change
not yet

the aca insurance is still called
obamacare

once it gets all changed
i dont see how it can be made better
it will be called
trumpcare

now this obamacare
even if you dont like it
its important

it provides insurance to close to 20 million folks
those numbers can vary a lot based on who is
writing about it and what points they want to make

for all of us
what happens to this obamacare insurance
it bleeds into the nonobamacare insurance
it seems
most folks i know or my relatives
are all on
medicare and supplements
military retirement
veterans
work health insurance

its the work health insurance that seems to affect
most of you
as the price on obamacare goes
so does the cost of your work health insurance

my biggest worry
is the lack of support for the obamacare
will leave us with poor expensive policies
for those having to buy plans on the market

if this all falls apart without support
a lot of folks like many of you
wont be able to get affordable good health insurance
no
there will be what i call junk ones
that will be taunted by many politicians
as proof of low cost insurance
that are not worth what you pay for them
plus
those preexisting conditions will hurt all of us

so
i decided to go online to search for what i could get
as insurance through the exchanges
if i lived in three places i used to live

rural arkansas
rural texas just 40 miles north of austin
santa barbara

note califronia has the best website available for this
the healthcare.gov site is sketchy at times
the difference is california has tried to make theirs work
the us government has tried to make theirs fail

so
i pretended i was 42 with a 40 year old wife who was not pregnant
with a 12 year old son and a 5 year old daughter
with a family income of $75,000

i looked at the different companies that were offered
choosing the silver plan
since you need that one to get the subsidies
i filtered out the ones that i felt like would not be a good
dependable insurance company

in california where we live there was only one choice
in texas and arkansas there were several choices
i chose long established companies
in these cases the companies were blue cross blue shield ones

so
in california
the only choice was blue shield ppo
cost per month was $605 with a monthly tax credit of $928
it had a $2500 deductible per individual $5000 per family
yearly premium around $7200 with lots of out of pocket costs

in rural arkansas
the choice i made was arkansas blue cross blue shield ppo
cost per month was $711 with a monthly tax credit of $636
it had a $8000 deductible with a $14000 maximum out of pocket limit
yearly premium around $8532

in rural texas near austin
the choice i made was blue cross blue shield hmo
from talking to folks in the healthcare provider side this one
has a restrictive choice of physicians
cost per month was $798 with a monthly tax credit of $386
it had a $5000 family deductible with a max out of pocket of $14700
yearly premium around $9576

all of these policies had a lot of extra costs involved like
copays for office visits extra costs for drugs some had limits on
office visits some had limited choices of providers

when compared to the one i helped my son buy the first year
obamacare came out
a plan that was better than the one my wife she got from work
his was a much better plan than whats available now

now
the obamacare or not yet trumpcare or aca policies dont have
the same quality as they did in the beginning
which
i have noticed is the same as those policies folks get
from their work related policies

now all this is for folks who qualify for tax credits
if you dont qualify then you really pay a lot for insuance
well over $15000 a year for this family of four

i dont see any fixing going on of all of this
getting rid of it without replacing it with a more workable system
will leave a lot of you without coverage
due to
the costs
the available only of bad policies
the preexisting clause that will affect most of you

for now i am safe from all of this
since i have medicare and medicare supplement
but even that is climbing in costs
i can afford that
many retired folks cant

the solution
a complete revamping of our healthcare system
in a bipartisan way so it can withstand the changes
of who is in control in congress at a moment in time
well
i just dont see that happening

i guess what i am saying
is
there may not really be a solution
since too many powerful influences will come into play
if a change is proposed

it would definitely suck to be a small business person trying
to make it so you are protected from a medical expense disaster

as i have said before
its our fault if this happens
since
we elect those folks who wont change things up for the better

the organicgreen doctor