Health care - It's the little things that count

Remember: it's not about you!

It's the little things that count. Each small bottle of Lantus 24-hr. insulin retails for well over $100; there's about 1-2 week's supply in each bottle. Regular insulin is over $35 per bottle nowadays.


Each of these once-a-day pills for diabetics costs around $5.00 - EACH PILL! Ninety days worth is about $450 retail. Thrifty ol' Ben is not smiling.


Keep in mind that the healthcare issue really isn't about you or me. It's about who gets how much money. It's about the insurance companies making record profits while raising rates. It's about how much money your government representatives pocket from lobbyists. It's about doctors that charge outrageous amounts so they can pay for their own insurance. It's about drug companies that charge 1000's of times their cost of development and production for drugs that the majority of people can't afford; it's all about the G$R$E$E$N$.

Some questions about the current healthcare debate come to mind:

1. Why are healthcare costs rising at many times the rate of inflation?
2. Why are insurance costs rising at many times the rate of inflation?
3. Why am I called a communist liberal for thinking that every person should have affordable and available healthcare in a country where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send our kids to be killed in countries that most of us have probably never heard of?
4. Why does a single pill for diabetics cost $5, a bottle of insulin cost over $100 or a simple doctor's visit cost over $100?
5. Why is everyone talking about the prohibitive cost of providing healthcare, rather than the shame of admitting that the US has one of the lowest rates of healthcare availability in the 10 richest nations?
6. Why are all republicans voting against universal healthcare, while almost all democrats are voting for it?
7. Why is repealing the new healthcare system, the only major healthcare reform in decades, the primary goal of the new republican-led house?
8. Why is the "right-to-life" issue more important than a right to a quality life? Wasn't this settled in the Roe vs. Wade decision 40 years ago?
9. Where's the money going?

More later........