Drugs and Me - You
Henry, Lawrence
"Drugs and Me - You" about forcing sex on minors." And The New Republic: "We all know the sexual abuse of minors is horrific; but somehow the bishops did not react with horror. That is what truly shocks" And The New...
...A reporter who wrote that gay priests were a grave problem for the Catholic Church would not be making a good career move...
...They have spared me broken bones and tr kept me breathing...
...Others—like our current one—won't even accept an appeal on the matter...
...I, for one, want to thank America's pharmaceutical companies for those expensive drugs...
...Thereon hangs a long tale about prescription drugs, what they cost and what they do...
...we can't absorb it normally...
...It keeps us walking around and living normally...
...The alternative is far more costly, both to individuals and to society...
...A 22-page New Yorker article about the Times media people love to read about one another says, among other things, that publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., executive editor Howell Raines, managing editor Gerald Boyd and editorial page editor Gail Collins meet for lunch once a week...
...The co-pay system sounds like a good deal, but it may not be...
...Kidney patients use EPO: so do cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy...
...News stories in the limes read increasingly like editorials, and now we know why...
...But with calcitriol, we can...
...Co-pays disguise cost, both from the consumer (who ultimately pays, one way or the other) and from the doctor, who prescribes without taking cost into account...
...Ironically, if my doctor were to prescribe the injectable form of the drug, Calcijex, which costs four or five times as much, the insurance company would pay for it...
...Goad w`rkh I^ au, ran do good work gr...
...Hurd's hooks and subscriptions to The Living Resources r1'ewsletter are as ailable at www.DrHurd.com Read The Daily Dose of Reason by psychologist and author Michael J. Hurd free-every day—a DrHurd.com Not online...
...He made his money on the backs of our parents and our grandparents...
...I pay $2 per pill for calcitriol...
...A Democratic consultant, yacking on TV that evening, revealed what the talk show's host jokingly called "the Torricelli talking points" (Forrester will oppose incumbent Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli in the fall...
...We can't just take over the counter calcium...
...This article originally appeared on TheArnericanProwler.org, TAS's daily web publication...
...t. Dr...
...As my kidney got worse, and my dose went up to 10,000 milliliters twice a week, the cost escalated, too—dramatically But there's a glitch in the system here, also a product of the disguised cost routines of a flat co-pay.Two companies make versions of EPO...
...That is what truly shocks" And The New Yorker: "The big shocker has been not so much the abuse itself . . . as the coldly bureaucratic `handling' of it by hierarchs...
...I have a kidney transplant...
...Liberal attitudes are the norm and conservatism is an aberration...
...And if drug companies make money on the process, well, that's how it works: Without the profits, there would be no drugs...
...health care system works—and it works better than it is popularly supposed to work, if not yet quite as well as it could...
...This is absurd, but that's how things are...
...They have kept me alive for 21 years after I could have died, and would have, through most of our history They have kept me functioning actively and out of the hospital and off dialysis...
...My fourth drug, added two years ago, is erithropoitin, an injectable that made the news as an illegal performance enhancer during the last Olympic games...
...a voice the world needs to hear...
...Pay attention...
...you u.po.e You gar, ngn It mean the ..roverybodybureut, o<~enn —.erne On.a rrb...
...For a month's supply of prednisone, I paid 63 cents...
...I might say something else, too, just to prove that I can be as mean as a Democratic consultant...
...Drugs will be more expensive this time around, and a good thing, too...
...They make up the paper's "steering committee...
...Problem is, insurance companies regard calcitriol as a vitamin, and they don't cover vitamins...
...Douglas Forrester is a pharmaceutical executive," said the Dem flack...
...My basic drug regimen for most of those years consisted of Imuran, a brand-name immunosuppressant, and prednisone, a generic anti-inflammatory...
...My third drug, added many years ago, turned out to be a mod-ern patented form of Vitamin D, called Rocaltrol, made by Roche...
...Go figure...
...I discovered this only by accident, when one of my doctors carelessly wrote a prescription for the cheaper medication (there is no functional difference between the two...
...Under the HMO/PPO system, you pay a flat fee for every doctor visit or every prescription, typically $5 or $10...
...The pre-tense is that this has no effect on how news is reported, but it does...
...And, inevitably, The New York Review of Books: "The current scandal is not a sex scandal...
...What 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JULY/AUGUST 2002 does it matter, if most patients simply fork over the same flat fee for a drug...
...woh ywdnd deznd salfrrgeuegrend through the vro...
...JULY/AUGUST 2002 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 2 5...
...Most live in a world where everyone believes the same as they do...
...The alternative, which most insured people choose, is a "co-pay" system under an HMO (health maintenance organization) or PPO (preferred provider organization...
...The insurance company pays 80 percent of medical charges...
...Procrit costs almost twice as much as Epogen...
...I can't wait to tell people what he's really all about" Got that...
...Call 800-358-3507 ext...
...Improved immunosuppressants have boosted the success rate for live, related donor kidney transplants from about 65 percent, at the time of my first transplant, to better than 90 percent today...
...For a dozen Becton-Dickinson 3-ml syringes, I paid 56 cents...
...Generically, it's known as calcitriol...
...My wife and I have chosen a soLawrence Henry is a writer in Westfield, New Jersey...
...My month's supply of Imuran and prednisone costs me $12.16...
...Some insurers will relent if you have a doctor write a letter explaining the situation...
...Add a third regular generic drug to my regimen, and I would save money, even with an Rx co-pay of only $5...
...we pick up the remaining 20...
...Media people may see themselves as independent thinkers, but only rarely are they called on to test their perception...
...CURES COV91-fS' 1MPT1ON, A$Tti s `Rhetlrlwllsm,Nervotlsness NE'( COMPL i T HAVE WOE IS'S TON% AND YOU called "80/20" health insurance plan, classic indemnity insurance...
...Come fall, you may find me standing next to Douglas Forrester, explaining all that and shaking his hand...
...And now, as I head toward another kidney transplant, expensive drugs will give me a renewed life once again—an absolutely normal life, making a living, taking care of my kids...
...When George Will tried to raise the issue of homosexual priests on ABC's This Week, Cokie Roberts shouted him down...
...Last June 4, Douglas Forrester won the New Jersey Republican primary...
...Why these varying charges...
...The bill is paid, not to put too fine a point on it, in death...
...Initially, with a dose of 3,000 milliliters two times a week, my 20 percent share of the monthly cost was $56...
...The bill is paid in hospital stays, ambulance fees, emergency room visits and lost productivity...
...I might say, "Robert Torricelli wants me dead...
...Under a co-pay system, I would pay either $10 or $20, for the same thing...
...It matters a lot...
...DRUGS AND ME BY LAWRENCE HENRY This morning, I picked up two prescriptions at the local pharmacy...
...But as The Neu, porker has now reported, even if it didn't quite mean to, the Times' editorial and news pages, once thought to be separate and distinct entities, are now considered as one...
...In a rational health care system, with the costs out front, the price differential between Procrit and Epogen would betraded away—in favor of the lower price...
...Better he should criticize the hierarchy than be accused of homophobia...
...I take a shot twice a week to keep my sagging red blood cell count up...
...It is also a tale about how the U.S...
...THE LIVING RESOURCES NEWSLETTER .I.wnmotrvpwrn.o unyneodented, often ..µoi „k...
...Things get put together at lunch...
...Pharmaceutical executives and companies are evil because they make expensive prescription drugs...
...It has worked for 21 years, but, in the last several years, it has gradually started to fail...
...People with impaired kidney function have screwed up calcium-phosphorus balances, and tend to lose calcium from their bones, leading to stooping, humped shoulders and broken bones...
...2 1 The High Cost of Living for the Common Good "Robert Torricelli wants me dead...
...Meanwhile, the Times: It is a very great paper, and with its abundant resources and talent, it does things no other paper can do...
...A month's supply of Imuran costs $11.60...
Vol. 35 • July 2002 • No. 4
