Drugmaker Eli Lilly announced today that it will cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month, bringing costs for people with private insurance and those without insurance who sign up for Lilly’s copay assistance program into line with the $35 cap for Medicare recipients Congress imposed with the Inflation Reduction Act last August.
The fact that the ERA has not been fully ratified to date is testament to the patriarchal condemnation of women and our LGBTQ kin to second class citizenry.
My Uncle Bobby is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is mostly deaf. He was, remarkably, not checked for deafness until he was exiting high school. By that point everyone had taken for granted that he was simply unintelligent, considering he always did so poorly in school and frequently couldn't follow instructions. Turns out he never could hear what anyone was saying if their back was turned. By that point it was clear he was not on track to go to college. He worked for decades making an honest living at a pizza parlor, and was liked by absolutely everyone.
Oh, he is also diabetic. That should be unimportant, considering how many people are. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. All it took was for him to hurt his leg, get a cast, and have that cast not fit just right. There goes the infection. There goes the leg. There goes the job at the pizza parlor. There goes that meager salary. There goes the social life, too. Here comes living in a tiny room, with nothing to fill the day, and no way of getting around. Here comes the slide into barely concealed alcoholism. Here comes the after-effects of all that beer and immobility on a 60 year old diabetic body. There goes the other leg. Here comes the nursing home.
Funny thing about the nursing home, now that he is a ward of the state he actually gets the excellent care that could have prevented him from landing in the nursing home.
Oh, and this was right before the pandemic. So there goes being able to see your family for a few years. And here comes getting Covid. Twice. And fighting it off. Twice. And another infection. In your skull. And fighting that off too. And managing somehow to get out of your chair. And putting on your leg braces. And walking down the whole long hallway, just leaning on a walker, pure upper body strength and determination, captured on a shaky phone camera, probably by one of the nurses you are currently in love with, because you fall in love with all your nurses, because you've never had a real girlfriend, not once, and because they are kind and bring you coffee and take care of you, and you've never had anyone to take care of you, other than your sister Dianne, who even though she is only 11 months older still was assigned to walk you to school because she was so mature and you were so simple, and that is who you are sending this to right now, because she'll be proud of you and send back a message of nothing but heart emojis and candy canes, even though Cristmas is over, because you both love Christmas THAT MUCH.
This is a strong person I just described. Also a dependent person. Don't get it twisted, they can be both. This person would have been dead many times over, year after year, if it wasn't for a very easily manufactured medicine.
Eli Lilly can afford to cut their costs by 70% and still make money. What were they making before? Too much. And now, still, too much. The correct amount would be zero dollars. No one should make so much money on something so many others cannot afford to be without.
Wow! A Second George Santos in Congress!!! Who woulda thunk it????
But this highlights the major question of why there was not even cursory investigative reporting on these guys when they were in primaries. Local news media organizations are being gutted and/or taken over by conservative media conglomerates.
“‘Out country was founded to support the prosperity and potential of Americans in every corner of the nation,’ Vilsack wrote. ‘Under President Joe Biden’s administration, we’re making good on this promise.’”
"Today, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did an end run around McCarthy to address the problem of disinformation directly at the source. They sent a letter to Rupert Murdoch, chair of the Fox Corporation, and other top Fox executives..."
How about a letter to the FCC about canceling FNC's broadcast license? I believe there is language in FCC broadcast regs requiring licensees to "serve the public interest" in some way. Knowingly, willingly, repeatedly broadcasting lies undermining public faith in a bona fide presidential election that leads to an attempted coup is as great a dis-service of the public interest that I can think of.
The FCC should suspend FNC's broadcast license and make the first requirement for reinstatement pre-recorded and FCC-approved mia culpa confessions of every FNC personality starting with Carlson and Hannity, along with an acknowledgement by one and all that Joe Biden is indeed the bona fide, legally elected president of the United States. Said recording should be required to be broadcast by FNC, during prime time, at least twice, or they lose their license.
I'm just venting now but, damn I'm so angry that Rupert Murdoch and his gang of propagandists are still on the air.
Now if only Congress wrote a bill that required Medicare and Medicaid drug providers to use a single national formulary with standard prices for ALL drugs, and Part B items like continuous glucose monitors so that people don't have to shop to see which provider covers what meds/ancillaries at what price which can change year to year and provider to provider.
I continue to be amazed at how systems to support older people get more and more complicated and force seniors to go through so many hoops along with so much additional supporting administration in government and in the companies.
I deeply miss the communal practice of the Catholic faith. But I left the institutional church decades ago over the hypocrisy of the vast majority of the hierarchy and the priesthood towards women, towards the LBGBTQ+ community, for their failure to protect our children, and for their insatiable need to meddle in politics.
Every time, as I get older and start getting wistful again for the community some new eruption of tone deaf crazy gets spewed forth. Christ calls us to community, but the Catholic church is not it.
Heather, you are the best. Thanks so much for pulling together so many aspects of the news into such a cohesive narrative. Hope you jump into bed and have a great night of sleep!
Sen Bernie Sanders has been hammering big Pharma on the price of insulin and along with his friend Pres Biden deserves credit for Eli Lily deciding to cap insulin prices at $35.
What sets the Democrats apart from the repub party is Truth and the Democrats commitment to their oath and legislating for all the American people, whoever they voted for in the last presidential election. Everyone, no matter their party preference, will be able to take advantage of lower Insulin costs, child care or food programs or public schools, medical insurance, you get the picture. But repubs rely on Heritage Foundation, the Thomas More Society and a former Kansas attorney general whose license was suspended for ethics violations to help them block and stall legislation, progress, and the needs of women, children and families. Repubs continue to take up causes they call anti-religious or anti-family like abortion and women’s rights. The constitution, separation of church and state, or equal rights, women’s right to Abortion, the right to choose. And again the ERA. Remember Phyllis Schlafly’s campaign to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. They are party of Past Tense.
Folks really want to oust George Santos for his Walter Mitty resume, but really so many of the MAGA Republicans are posers! MTG couldn’t even recite a number that started one million… Matt Gaetz was caught quoting Chinese propaganda, and asking for that propaganda source to be entered into the record of that committee meeting.
It so elitist to call them out?
Maybe we should just say nothing and watch them paint themselves into a corner. I’m sure they know no other way to paint. They need to feel the insecurity of their imposter syndrome.
For-profit companies have one mission - to increase revenue and profits. They owe it to their shareholders to sell as much of their products and services as they can, and they run marketing campaigns to do so. They owe it to their shareholders to set prices as high as they can, and they seek patents and eliminate competition to do so. This is what being a for-profit business means.
The problem is that, in America (and almost no where else), healthcare is a for-profit business. This means that American healthcare companies are driven to sell us as much healthcare as they can (America is one of the only countries that allows direct-to-consumer advertising for healthcare). And American healthcare companies are driven to charge as much as they can for their products and services. Yet healthcare is not like other businesses. Consumers can’t put off the cardiac surgery or the insulin purchase until there’s a sale. They can’t shop around for the best deal on a knee replacement. As a result, Americans pay twice as much (or more), per capita, as other developed nations do for healthcare. And our health and life expectancy is much worse.
Someday historians will look back on our for-profit healthcare system and deem it an abomination, while they wonder why we ever allowed it. They will note the brutality of a system driven by greed for some, instead of good health for all. They will tally the millions upon millions of deaths and shortened lives, all in pursuit of shareholder value. There’s a reason healthcare is “socialized” everywhere except in the US. It’s because socialized medicine is the humane, decent, moral approach - the approach that provides the best healthcare outcomes for all, instead of the highest returns on investment. For-profit medicine is obscene.
Ironic to me is the fact that evangelicals and the right wing were pro-abortion back in the 60s partly because the Catholics were against it!
John F Kennedy’s election as a Catholic was vigorously fought by the right wing too. And now we have five Catholics in the Supreme Court, thanks to them.
Considering the very long sordid history of the Catholic Church starting with the shenanigans of the early popes, the last 100+ years of pedophilia, their support of the Nazis during World War II, and the multitude of deaths of babies born from unwed mothers leaves leaves them with little moral standing.
Their current reprehensible, repulsive actions through the Thomas Moore society again reveals their true nature.
The fact that the ERA has not been fully ratified to date is testament to the patriarchal condemnation of women and our LGBTQ kin to second class citizenry.
My Uncle Bobby is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is mostly deaf. He was, remarkably, not checked for deafness until he was exiting high school. By that point everyone had taken for granted that he was simply unintelligent, considering he always did so poorly in school and frequently couldn't follow instructions. Turns out he never could hear what anyone was saying if their back was turned. By that point it was clear he was not on track to go to college. He worked for decades making an honest living at a pizza parlor, and was liked by absolutely everyone.
Oh, he is also diabetic. That should be unimportant, considering how many people are. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. All it took was for him to hurt his leg, get a cast, and have that cast not fit just right. There goes the infection. There goes the leg. There goes the job at the pizza parlor. There goes that meager salary. There goes the social life, too. Here comes living in a tiny room, with nothing to fill the day, and no way of getting around. Here comes the slide into barely concealed alcoholism. Here comes the after-effects of all that beer and immobility on a 60 year old diabetic body. There goes the other leg. Here comes the nursing home.
Funny thing about the nursing home, now that he is a ward of the state he actually gets the excellent care that could have prevented him from landing in the nursing home.
Oh, and this was right before the pandemic. So there goes being able to see your family for a few years. And here comes getting Covid. Twice. And fighting it off. Twice. And another infection. In your skull. And fighting that off too. And managing somehow to get out of your chair. And putting on your leg braces. And walking down the whole long hallway, just leaning on a walker, pure upper body strength and determination, captured on a shaky phone camera, probably by one of the nurses you are currently in love with, because you fall in love with all your nurses, because you've never had a real girlfriend, not once, and because they are kind and bring you coffee and take care of you, and you've never had anyone to take care of you, other than your sister Dianne, who even though she is only 11 months older still was assigned to walk you to school because she was so mature and you were so simple, and that is who you are sending this to right now, because she'll be proud of you and send back a message of nothing but heart emojis and candy canes, even though Cristmas is over, because you both love Christmas THAT MUCH.
This is a strong person I just described. Also a dependent person. Don't get it twisted, they can be both. This person would have been dead many times over, year after year, if it wasn't for a very easily manufactured medicine.
Eli Lilly can afford to cut their costs by 70% and still make money. What were they making before? Too much. And now, still, too much. The correct amount would be zero dollars. No one should make so much money on something so many others cannot afford to be without.
Wow! A Second George Santos in Congress!!! Who woulda thunk it????
But this highlights the major question of why there was not even cursory investigative reporting on these guys when they were in primaries. Local news media organizations are being gutted and/or taken over by conservative media conglomerates.
“‘Out country was founded to support the prosperity and potential of Americans in every corner of the nation,’ Vilsack wrote. ‘Under President Joe Biden’s administration, we’re making good on this promise.’”
Thank goodness for that!
"Today, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did an end run around McCarthy to address the problem of disinformation directly at the source. They sent a letter to Rupert Murdoch, chair of the Fox Corporation, and other top Fox executives..."
How about a letter to the FCC about canceling FNC's broadcast license? I believe there is language in FCC broadcast regs requiring licensees to "serve the public interest" in some way. Knowingly, willingly, repeatedly broadcasting lies undermining public faith in a bona fide presidential election that leads to an attempted coup is as great a dis-service of the public interest that I can think of.
The FCC should suspend FNC's broadcast license and make the first requirement for reinstatement pre-recorded and FCC-approved mia culpa confessions of every FNC personality starting with Carlson and Hannity, along with an acknowledgement by one and all that Joe Biden is indeed the bona fide, legally elected president of the United States. Said recording should be required to be broadcast by FNC, during prime time, at least twice, or they lose their license.
I'm just venting now but, damn I'm so angry that Rupert Murdoch and his gang of propagandists are still on the air.
The Catholic bishops of the United States can go to purgatory, or worse.
Now if only Congress wrote a bill that required Medicare and Medicaid drug providers to use a single national formulary with standard prices for ALL drugs, and Part B items like continuous glucose monitors so that people don't have to shop to see which provider covers what meds/ancillaries at what price which can change year to year and provider to provider.
I continue to be amazed at how systems to support older people get more and more complicated and force seniors to go through so many hoops along with so much additional supporting administration in government and in the companies.
I deeply miss the communal practice of the Catholic faith. But I left the institutional church decades ago over the hypocrisy of the vast majority of the hierarchy and the priesthood towards women, towards the LBGBTQ+ community, for their failure to protect our children, and for their insatiable need to meddle in politics.
Every time, as I get older and start getting wistful again for the community some new eruption of tone deaf crazy gets spewed forth. Christ calls us to community, but the Catholic church is not it.
Wow. He conservative Republicans are a classy bunch, aren’t they?
I will note that Senator Murkowski (R-Alaska) is one of two main sponsors of the ERA bill. Now she is a class act.
A powerful poster - The Awakening: Women Fight for the Vote (1915)
Echoes of today's fight for abortion rights.
https://forgottenfiles.substack.com/p/the-awakening-women-fight-for-the
Heather, you are the best. Thanks so much for pulling together so many aspects of the news into such a cohesive narrative. Hope you jump into bed and have a great night of sleep!
Sen Bernie Sanders has been hammering big Pharma on the price of insulin and along with his friend Pres Biden deserves credit for Eli Lily deciding to cap insulin prices at $35.
What sets the Democrats apart from the repub party is Truth and the Democrats commitment to their oath and legislating for all the American people, whoever they voted for in the last presidential election. Everyone, no matter their party preference, will be able to take advantage of lower Insulin costs, child care or food programs or public schools, medical insurance, you get the picture. But repubs rely on Heritage Foundation, the Thomas More Society and a former Kansas attorney general whose license was suspended for ethics violations to help them block and stall legislation, progress, and the needs of women, children and families. Repubs continue to take up causes they call anti-religious or anti-family like abortion and women’s rights. The constitution, separation of church and state, or equal rights, women’s right to Abortion, the right to choose. And again the ERA. Remember Phyllis Schlafly’s campaign to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. They are party of Past Tense.
Folks really want to oust George Santos for his Walter Mitty resume, but really so many of the MAGA Republicans are posers! MTG couldn’t even recite a number that started one million… Matt Gaetz was caught quoting Chinese propaganda, and asking for that propaganda source to be entered into the record of that committee meeting.
It so elitist to call them out?
Maybe we should just say nothing and watch them paint themselves into a corner. I’m sure they know no other way to paint. They need to feel the insecurity of their imposter syndrome.
For-profit companies have one mission - to increase revenue and profits. They owe it to their shareholders to sell as much of their products and services as they can, and they run marketing campaigns to do so. They owe it to their shareholders to set prices as high as they can, and they seek patents and eliminate competition to do so. This is what being a for-profit business means.
The problem is that, in America (and almost no where else), healthcare is a for-profit business. This means that American healthcare companies are driven to sell us as much healthcare as they can (America is one of the only countries that allows direct-to-consumer advertising for healthcare). And American healthcare companies are driven to charge as much as they can for their products and services. Yet healthcare is not like other businesses. Consumers can’t put off the cardiac surgery or the insulin purchase until there’s a sale. They can’t shop around for the best deal on a knee replacement. As a result, Americans pay twice as much (or more), per capita, as other developed nations do for healthcare. And our health and life expectancy is much worse.
Someday historians will look back on our for-profit healthcare system and deem it an abomination, while they wonder why we ever allowed it. They will note the brutality of a system driven by greed for some, instead of good health for all. They will tally the millions upon millions of deaths and shortened lives, all in pursuit of shareholder value. There’s a reason healthcare is “socialized” everywhere except in the US. It’s because socialized medicine is the humane, decent, moral approach - the approach that provides the best healthcare outcomes for all, instead of the highest returns on investment. For-profit medicine is obscene.
Ironic to me is the fact that evangelicals and the right wing were pro-abortion back in the 60s partly because the Catholics were against it!
John F Kennedy’s election as a Catholic was vigorously fought by the right wing too. And now we have five Catholics in the Supreme Court, thanks to them.
Considering the very long sordid history of the Catholic Church starting with the shenanigans of the early popes, the last 100+ years of pedophilia, their support of the Nazis during World War II, and the multitude of deaths of babies born from unwed mothers leaves leaves them with little moral standing.
Their current reprehensible, repulsive actions through the Thomas Moore society again reveals their true nature.