Deadly Games
I know “socialized” medicine is a taboo subject, especially at election time. but if that is what it is going to take in order to fix the healthcare problems in this country then so be it. It seems that the capitalist approach does not work when it comes to medicine, and something needs to be done, because while these behemouth corporations, play their games, people are hurt and dying while they are playing them.
I know much of this I have covered in the past… stupid things like, Fat Prejudice in Healthcare (something I have encountered personally in recent events but that is for another post) not to mention things like health insurance companies that take so long to approve a proceedure that the person dies by the time they finally approve it. People collapse and are left to die on Emergency Room floors.
But as some people who follow me on Twitter saw last night, my new personal fight on this issue is with MEDCO. Medco is another giant corporation. They are a “pharmacy benefit management” company. In more basic user terms, they are the mail order presription filling company that covers (according to their own information) 1 in 5 Americans.
I have had problems with Medco before, back when I was taking medication for my ADD. The drugs are considered a controlled substance in New Jersey and you cannot distribute more than a 30 day supply. But Medco still insisted that I purchase from them otherwise it would not be covered. However they wouldn’t accept a prescription that had a refill number attached to it, so I had to send a new and unique script every 30 days. If it hit their office a day early, they would decline it because 30 days had not passed yet, and this meant a lapse in medication for me lasting anywhere from 2 to 5 days (depending on how weekends landed in the cycle). But this is old news now, and not my issue.
No, my issue is that after 3+ years that Medco has been covering my mom’s prescriptions, they have suddenly decided that because the drug is “off script.” Since being diagnosed in 1994 with , my mother endured 8 surgeries before the surgeon finally said that she was no longer a candidate for surgery. She was presribed a chemotherapy program that proved suprisingly successful. For a cancer that was growing at an incredible rate previously, it seemed to come to a stop when she began. It didn’t (and doesn’t) actually shrink the tumors as would be the normal hope, but it has suspended their continued growth… for like I said more than 2 years. But now some clerk has decided that despite the results, and this being the course of action decided by her doctors, this person has decided that it is not the “right usage”
Now, I’m sorry, if my mom wanted some recreational drug to use, she certainly wouldn’t be taking Temodar and Xeloda. Yes, it would be nice if there was something that was designed specifically for her type of cancer, but unfortunately since it is so rare, the chances of putting together a clinical study to get FDA approval is at best remote.
I really don’t like this. Not at all. Now, we will fight this, the paperwork has already gone in to appeal the decision, and letters have been filed by her doctors. But just how long will this process take? We were “offered” the opportunity to buy the medication directly… at $4800 for a 12 day supply (which covers 1 month). Gee how nice of them. But the drug is covered. So if it is OK to SELL the drug to us for her to use even though it is off label, then why aren’t they giving it to us covered? If they want to complain about how much it costs, they can certainly take up the fight with the pharmaceutical companies, and I would be happy to join that fight as well, because I certainly find it hard to accept $400/dose to be a “fair margin.”
The fight with the pharmaceutical companies will have to wait though, because I can’t worry about that until I know Medco is filling the scripts they should be filling, instead of trying to act like a doctor, or a god, that can just decide from behind some desk who qualifies for what medicine, who lives, and who dies. It is a deadly game these people are playing and we shouldn’t have to stand for it.
Drop it, that’s not chocolate
It is probably enough to have Milton Hershey rolling over in his grave. Last year a number of chocolate manufacturer’s lobbied to attempt to get the definition of chocolate changed so that they could substitute cheap fats in place of cocoa butter when making chocolate. This would have allowed them make the product cheaper, and to profit more by selling the cocoa butter at much higher profits to the cosmetics industry for use in lotions, soaps, etc. This however failed, and the FDA re-iterated that ”Cacao fat, as one of the signature characteristics of the product, will remain a principal component of standardized chocolate” according to the update.
The part that was most galling (to me anyway) was a statement by Kirk Saville, a Hershey’s spokesman, who said (emphasis added by me):
There are high-quality oils available which are equal to or better than cocoa butter in taste, nutrition, texture and function, and are preferred by consumers.
Preferred by consumers? Preferred? I don’t think so, Kirk. Oh, yeah take out the Cocoa Butter which actually has some nutritional benefit, and lets replace it with hydrogenated corn oil instead. Screw the fact that we take chocolate and actually make it unhealthy… it is healthy for profits. What this really means is, I think we can get away with it, and nobody will notice.
In the Biography of Milton Hershey that can be found at hersheypa.com
He took great pride in the growth of the school, the town, and his business. For the rest of his life, he always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits.
Well, obviously Milton is no longer in charge of the Heshey’s chocolate company. Hershey has done an end run around the issue. So, they can’t call their imitation chocolate “chocolate” but that didn’t stop them from making the change in a number of their products. According the the post on CandyBlog, a number of Hershey’s products are no longer milk chocolate, but instead are now “chocolate flavored candy.”
Look at the list of ingredients from a package of the original “Milk Chocolate” Kissables.
Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax.
Now look at the “Chocolate Candy” Kissables:
Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin.
See anything missing? Yup, that is right, no Milk Chocolate in it any longer. The same is true for Whatchamacallits, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackle. Why hasn’t anybody noticed? Because Hershey went to great lengths to make it so that it is difficult to notice. (And in part, thanks to a slight change in labeling law on what has to be called “imitation” ). Products that once bore the words “Milk Chocolate” now instead are listed as “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey.”
Actually, it seems in once case apparently it did get noticed, where Almond Joy was returned to Milk Chocolate after comsumers complained.
Fortunately (so far) Hershey Bars, Kisses, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups remain unaffected and are still Milk Chocolate products. Tell Hershey what you think of their faux chocolate, because messing with our chocolate is just plain wrong.
The Palin Doctrine
Like many, when Sarah Palin was picked for a running partner, I said, “Sarah Who?” At first blush, I thought this was just an ill conceived move in desperation to try and grab, “disgruntled Hillary Voters” and women in general. (As I suspect many others have done as well).I held off commenting on this situation at first because there was little I was going to say that hadn’t been said far more eloquently by somebody else. But as I watch this from the sidelines, I am quickly starting to understand. This was no “fluke.” Sarah Palin fits perfectly into the Karl Rove built world of politics. I was both thrilled and disappointed when I read about the hackers that had gotten into Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account. Thrilled of course that now there was obvious proof that she was in fact doing what she was being accused of doing. She was circumventing public records Acts and using alternative methods to send e-mail so as to cover her tracks.I was disappointed that this was done, because it obviously gives Palin and her supporters the cover they need in this situation. They cry foul (which in all fairness it was), and can of course now claim that it was all a hack and that none of the e-mails were “real.” They would be lying through their teeth in doing so, but Palin (and John McCain) have both shown that even when caught, they will go right on lying. It is so bad that even Time Magazine admits,
The situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity andinaccuracy … or, as the Associated Press put it, “McCain’s claims skirt facts.” But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar.
I mean, how bad is it when Karl Rove is questioning your practices? No, Sarah Palin was no “accident.”
The Times reports that using webmail for official business was Standard Operating Proceedure in Alaska:
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.”Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.”Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!”
She has shown herself to be willing to make up her facts as she goes along quite nicely. Whether it is her claim that Alaska provides 20% of the nations energy (Alaska provides about 3.5%), or flat out lying when she says she told Congress “Thanks but no thanks” for funding the bridge to nowhere. After all when she was running for Governor she said during an Interview:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now – while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
Oh she eventually threw the project under the bus, but not until it had been all but killed in Congress, and had become the poster project for pork barrel spending.She has also shown the same cut-throat expectation of loyalty and will fire anybody that does not give her 100% support, that we have come to know during the Bush years. In other words, refuse to give Sarah the right answer when asked if you would ban books from the library that Sarah Palin doesn’t like and you are gone. When I first saw Sarah Palin, I likened her to Geraldine Ferarro, a poor choice done out of desperation. I was so wrong. While Ferarro was a poor choice, and her inept run probably hurt the cause of women in politics more than anything, Sarah Palin is far more dangerous than that.
I’m a parent too
Trade shows for the year are done, as are (hopefully) business trips. So other than a new podcast we (“we” being myself along with the unflappable BusyMom) are trying to launch (but more on that soon), life should allow me to get back to blogging on a regular basis again. I hope. I don’t know if it is because I haven’t had much opportunity to blog lately or not, but I have been storing up one rant or another, and it seems like all my topics are leaning this way. I hoped to start out a bit more mild mannered, but decided, if I did that I might not ever get back to it… so my apologies, but here we go with rant one in the series.Over at Career and Kids, there was an interesting little bit on Does Your Husband “Baby-Sit”? This is one of those things that is a sore subject for me… from a variety of angles. On one hand, sometimes I think this gets a bit overblown. Even in the comments, several women complained that men should not refer to it a “baby-sitting” when it comes to their own kids. Really more than anything, it is just a difference in choice of words. Blame it on sexist games or “being manly men” or whatever, I know dads that while every bit as happy to be with their kids as anybody else, but when they are talking to their “buddies” use phrases like “being stuck baby-sitting.” It has nothing to do with “expectations of their wife” or how they feel about their kids. Turn it around, and even if they would really prefer to be out shopping with their friends, but he is on a business trip, she would NEVER say she was “stuck baby-sitting” to her friends (even if this is how she felt), because of appearances. After all “what kind of mother would say that?”Yes, there are exceptions to all of these scenarios. There are fathers that treat their wives like they are slaves, and the kids are nothing but critters under foot that the wife is supposed to deal with, and keep in their place because he had a hard day at work. But they are exceptions, these are outdated 1950′s versions of cavemen (or Republicans). And these clods wouldn’t “baby-sit” anyway (at least not without a fight), so really the complaint is about bad wording. On the other side of this coin, do you ever wonder why some of these issues continue to come up? Look around, read some blogs and really pay attention to what is being said. Look at advertising, and even (I may have mentioned this once before), look at medias portrayals of men as parents. Take a look at any “parenting” magazine. Count how many ads you see that aren’t specifically targeted towards women (you won’t need more than one hand, and will probabaly have a finger or three to spare). The argument will most likely be, “but men don’t read these magazine.” And that is probably true, but why? The articles are writen to, for and about women. The ads are selling directly to (and exclusively to) women. So why would a man read it?Take in a sermon (or speech) from to biggest (or at least loudest) voices of the “moral majority” and you head how men are not men any more. How women are supposed to stay home to take care of the children. While they treat this more like the previously mentioned silly outdated theories of the men “make the money,” the other not talked about side of it, is that obviously these people don’t think (and in some cases they may be right) that these men are fully capable to be a full time parent. Read a few Mommy Blogs long enough and you will see how women are “amazed” at how well things went when she went on a trip, or how she doesn’t trust him to check their homework, or get them to soccer practice, and so on. They love their husbands (I presume), but yet they trust them with nothing, allow them to do nothing, in many cases don’t bother to tell them anything, but then don’t understand why he is disconnected with “everything going on.”My final (and admittedly a bit silly, but it is worth the point I hope to make) complaint is how father’s are portrayed in movies, media, etc. Funny, how so many women complain and hate “pricess” things because of all the supposed negative stereotypes (that is a whole other rant for another day), but let us look for a second at the dads. Cinderella’s father couldn’t raise his daughter alone, so he chose to marry (granted poorly) so that his daughter would have a proper mother. Staying in Cinderella you have the crazy king, insistent on getting his son married. ”Crazy Old” Maurice trying to raise Belle. Bambi basically learned it all on his own out in the wild because his mother died. While he eventually catches on, the humor in Mr. Mom is how inept Jack is at taking care of his kids when his wife goes off to work. Daddy Daycare also shows that men have “no clue” how hard it is to raise children.I am a parent too. I care just as much, and do just as much for my daughter as my wife. And do so happily. If you don’t like the wording on how I describe it, change the stereotypes. Don’t make me look either “whipped” or “freaky” for wanting to do so. But until that changes, don’t harp on me for how I choose to describe it either*.(*Disclaimer: I haven’t ever used the phrase “baby-sitting” to describe spending time with my daughter… but I am trying to make a point).
But I played one on vacation
I am not a professional photographer. Not by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a hobby that has seemingly taken on a life of its own. Taking me (hopefully) somewhere, someday in the future. Perhaps the next mountain I climb when I tire of being a programmer.
I still learning, but right now it is a whole lot of fun. I took over 500 photos during our vacation. There was a couple that had recently gotten engaged there with us, and I decided to have a little fun, and with any luck give them something to remember this giddy happy times (as engaged people are wont to have at this stage in the relationship).
If you happened to look at a few of the pictures I have posted to Flickr so far from the vacation, you may have seen a little lake that is on the resort. In the middle of that lake was (I thought) an excellent little island spot (it is connected by a bridge) for a few photos. So we waited until after dinner until the sun was starting to set so we didn’t get any harsh shadows, and went out to the island for some pictures.
I made no claims that any of the pictures would be any good (though I do have to admit I do like at least a couple of them), and they weren’t getting any other pictures done anyway, so it is not like I tried to steal a job from a real professional, nor replaced a good photographer. For me it was fun and an experience. For them, it seemed as if they had fun, and they have a few pictures to remember these days with. So I may not be a professional photographer yet, but I did get to play one while I was on vacation.
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