American Kid
2nd August 2002, 04:19
Nice.
This is incredible, if the (ACTING, btw) Governor of my beloved MA has her way, and you're 80 years old and can't afford your blood pressure medication----- you're fucked, dude!
Good evening. I'm the Kid.
So, this **** is fucking everything up. Here's a scary first paragraph to a front page newspaper article:
"A last minute appeal to bay state druggists not to abandon nearly 1 million Medicaid recipients largely fell on deaf ears yesterday......"
Nice, dude. Well, then how much does oxycontin cost on the black market? Because it's going to be cheaper there now.
This is a major catastrophe. This broad Swift is the most dangerous person to come out of MA politics since, well, Dukakis. But listen to what she did: as part of budget cuts, she lowered (dramatically) the reimbursement rate for pharamacies like CVS and Walgreens and Brooks.
What it is now is this: the pharmacies are reimbursed (seriously) the wholesale cost of the medications, MINUS 2 percent. It used to be wholesale, PLUS 10 percent.
Good moves. Personally, I'm on the pharmacies' side---and I'm on Masshealth (medicaid). The result is: the pharmacies, they're beating feat the-fuck-out-of-town now, and who can blame them?
I think at this point it's significant to mention she's an ACTING governor. See, Cellucci, the elected republican in office before, left to become a diplomat in Canada (as he is one of those dastardly FODUBYA'S). Unfortunately, for us all, next in line was this 30-something former juinor-state-congress woman who's biggest claim to fame since has been a blow-job fluff piece on 60 minutes because she was the first Governor (acting) to be in office while pregnant. Which was postponed last year in the wake of an event somewhat more significant: 9/11.
Jeez, Jane probably was sure pissed. At least she was able to retain the pride that comes with being the "leader" of the state where more hijacked planes took to the air from than any other. Good moves Logan airport (naturally, Jane was robbed of the spotlight again, as another poor unfortunate soul hit the front pages of the Boston papers following 9/11, a lady named Ginny Buckingham, the head of Logan; she was fired)
"It's going to have devastating consequences," said Jay Leary, owner of Southland pharmacy in Brighton (where the Kid was born, btw; this wasn't part of the article :) ). I think the legislator is being very shorstighted."
About 95 percent of his business is Medicaid patients, many of them Russian immigrants.
I've been screaming about how fucked up the healthcare system is up here in MA for a long time. We have a new kid at work, he's from Lithuania and I've become really good friends with him. Two weeks ago he noticed a rash on his shins. It quickly spread up his legs and I told him go see a doctor, which he did (luckily, he has a student-related health insurance plan which covered his ass). The doc gave him some scripts for creams and antihistamines. I went to CVS with him, the cream alone was going to be at least twenty bucks the pharmacist said.............Ugh, it was fucked up. This kid is over for the summer, he's not exactly swimming in benjamins here. My boss and I paid for it for him, but the point is, the system sucks. There's no reason it should cost so much.
I don't blame the pharmacies in this matter. They have the right I believe (and here's where the battle lines are going to be drawn, my friends) to make money. This shit doesn't grow on trees. But the state should help out, significantly if necessary. Especially for those who are low, low income. Otherwise, my friend would have that rash all over his body by now and look like a fucking burn victim or something.
To be fair, part of his insurance plan is he sends the reciept for the pills and creams to them (the insurance company), and they reimburse him with a check. But if I was him, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that thing to come in.
The way it sounds up here in MA, is the legislator thought they could play hardball with the pharmacies, push them around, bully them up a little bit, and they'd comply. What happened instead is they called their bluff, and said, "Okay, you know what? Now we want out." So the legislator is caught with their tails between their legs, and are going public, pleading through the local newspapers for a 60 day "reprieve" to "remedy the situation before they drop Medicaire patients." Ugh.........
I was in a pharmacy (Brooks') yesterday and was chatting with the lady at the register about this. She, the whole staff, doesn't like this situation anymore than us customers do. It sucks for everyone. They don't want to turn people away. WHO wants to do that? You think it's gonna help a person sleep at night?
I told her though, "You're gonna get a lot of idiots who are going to come here, yelling at you guys."
She rolled her eyes with a grin and nodded. "I know," she said.
"It's too bad, I feel bad for you. Because it's not you they should be yelling at. It's their local congressman."
-AK
(Edited by American Kid at 4:40 am on Aug. 2, 2002)
This is incredible, if the (ACTING, btw) Governor of my beloved MA has her way, and you're 80 years old and can't afford your blood pressure medication----- you're fucked, dude!
Good evening. I'm the Kid.
So, this **** is fucking everything up. Here's a scary first paragraph to a front page newspaper article:
"A last minute appeal to bay state druggists not to abandon nearly 1 million Medicaid recipients largely fell on deaf ears yesterday......"
Nice, dude. Well, then how much does oxycontin cost on the black market? Because it's going to be cheaper there now.
This is a major catastrophe. This broad Swift is the most dangerous person to come out of MA politics since, well, Dukakis. But listen to what she did: as part of budget cuts, she lowered (dramatically) the reimbursement rate for pharamacies like CVS and Walgreens and Brooks.
What it is now is this: the pharmacies are reimbursed (seriously) the wholesale cost of the medications, MINUS 2 percent. It used to be wholesale, PLUS 10 percent.
Good moves. Personally, I'm on the pharmacies' side---and I'm on Masshealth (medicaid). The result is: the pharmacies, they're beating feat the-fuck-out-of-town now, and who can blame them?
I think at this point it's significant to mention she's an ACTING governor. See, Cellucci, the elected republican in office before, left to become a diplomat in Canada (as he is one of those dastardly FODUBYA'S). Unfortunately, for us all, next in line was this 30-something former juinor-state-congress woman who's biggest claim to fame since has been a blow-job fluff piece on 60 minutes because she was the first Governor (acting) to be in office while pregnant. Which was postponed last year in the wake of an event somewhat more significant: 9/11.
Jeez, Jane probably was sure pissed. At least she was able to retain the pride that comes with being the "leader" of the state where more hijacked planes took to the air from than any other. Good moves Logan airport (naturally, Jane was robbed of the spotlight again, as another poor unfortunate soul hit the front pages of the Boston papers following 9/11, a lady named Ginny Buckingham, the head of Logan; she was fired)
"It's going to have devastating consequences," said Jay Leary, owner of Southland pharmacy in Brighton (where the Kid was born, btw; this wasn't part of the article :) ). I think the legislator is being very shorstighted."
About 95 percent of his business is Medicaid patients, many of them Russian immigrants.
I've been screaming about how fucked up the healthcare system is up here in MA for a long time. We have a new kid at work, he's from Lithuania and I've become really good friends with him. Two weeks ago he noticed a rash on his shins. It quickly spread up his legs and I told him go see a doctor, which he did (luckily, he has a student-related health insurance plan which covered his ass). The doc gave him some scripts for creams and antihistamines. I went to CVS with him, the cream alone was going to be at least twenty bucks the pharmacist said.............Ugh, it was fucked up. This kid is over for the summer, he's not exactly swimming in benjamins here. My boss and I paid for it for him, but the point is, the system sucks. There's no reason it should cost so much.
I don't blame the pharmacies in this matter. They have the right I believe (and here's where the battle lines are going to be drawn, my friends) to make money. This shit doesn't grow on trees. But the state should help out, significantly if necessary. Especially for those who are low, low income. Otherwise, my friend would have that rash all over his body by now and look like a fucking burn victim or something.
To be fair, part of his insurance plan is he sends the reciept for the pills and creams to them (the insurance company), and they reimburse him with a check. But if I was him, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that thing to come in.
The way it sounds up here in MA, is the legislator thought they could play hardball with the pharmacies, push them around, bully them up a little bit, and they'd comply. What happened instead is they called their bluff, and said, "Okay, you know what? Now we want out." So the legislator is caught with their tails between their legs, and are going public, pleading through the local newspapers for a 60 day "reprieve" to "remedy the situation before they drop Medicaire patients." Ugh.........
I was in a pharmacy (Brooks') yesterday and was chatting with the lady at the register about this. She, the whole staff, doesn't like this situation anymore than us customers do. It sucks for everyone. They don't want to turn people away. WHO wants to do that? You think it's gonna help a person sleep at night?
I told her though, "You're gonna get a lot of idiots who are going to come here, yelling at you guys."
She rolled her eyes with a grin and nodded. "I know," she said.
"It's too bad, I feel bad for you. Because it's not you they should be yelling at. It's their local congressman."
-AK
(Edited by American Kid at 4:40 am on Aug. 2, 2002)