I have all LED lights in my office. About once a month, one of them will begin to flicker off and on, either at 30, 60, 90, or 120 cycles per second. So far, when each one has started doing this, each has flashed at a different rate. Normally not at the 60 cycle power line rate, it is usually very slow or very fast. This one is flashing at around 120 cycles today.
Lasts 7 years my patootie, hi hi.
What kills me about soul and spirit is so many, even the bible thumpers get it wrong most of the time.
It is quite clear in the scriptures that our soul ceases to exist when the body dies.
This makes sense, since we technically do not have a soul until we take our first breath of life.
But don't tell the abortion advocates that or they will have a heyday with it.
In the case of an unborn child, their breath of life is in the blood provided by their mothers breathing.
As far as our spirit goes, it existed even before we were conceived in the womb.
It has existed since the time of creation, and possibly even before then.
If you believe the scriptures, God said he knew us before we were in the womb.
So perhaps your quantum entanglement theory does hold some credence to spirits also.
Some day we will all know!
Take a couple of pills for me too, I can't afford to buy most of what I'm supposed to be taking anyhow.
Smug As A Bug
Re: Smug As A Bug
The human spirit is an old topic for discussion, and it's a chicken-egg type of quandary. Did the universe come from a spirit or did spirits evolve after the universe materialized? Some would believe you can't have either without the other. But there is another possibility wherein both exist simultaneously but neither state can be determined until it has been observed. The observation in effect is what creates the spirit and/or the universe. That's a fundamental principle in quantum physics. Thus all possible states exist prior to their observation. The universe existed before it was formed. That's what infinity is all about.
I beg to differ with your comment that the quandary will be resolved for all of us one day. The reason we will never know is pretty much due to the process you say is explained in the Bible. When a body dies, the spirit goes with it. Thus there is nothing remaining that could understand what life is all about. I have an open mind about it in one regard. The body is just a sack of chemicals that decomposes when life exits it. Life, however, could be a type of energy. When it is released from the body where does it go? It goes back into the infinity of all possible outcomes.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I beg to differ with your comment that the quandary will be resolved for all of us one day. The reason we will never know is pretty much due to the process you say is explained in the Bible. When a body dies, the spirit goes with it. Thus there is nothing remaining that could understand what life is all about. I have an open mind about it in one regard. The body is just a sack of chemicals that decomposes when life exits it. Life, however, could be a type of energy. When it is released from the body where does it go? It goes back into the infinity of all possible outcomes.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Re: Smug As A Bug
I do know the spirit does leave the body, and this has been proven many times over already.
Even my aunt who pronounced dead four different times told what she saw that would be impossible to see unless her spirit left her body.
There are many stories out there that were deemed valid, and/or proven valid by the reports given by the person who came back to life.
Like the lady who was pronounced dead and the doctors had left the room leaving only an aide there to prepare her for the morgue. The lady looked at the aide and started talking to her. She called the doctors back in, and they got her closed up and to the ICU where she talked to her mother. She said she met a lady in death who claimed to be her older sister. This is when the mother admitted to having another child who died before this sister was born. It was never mentioned in the home. Yet this lady knew quite a bit about her sister she could not have learned from anyone except her sister.
I'v run across stories like this many times over the years.
There are also stories from folks who never saw the white light to go to that others have seen, and felt compelled to head into the light. What they saw was only red and darkness and were very afraid. A few of these turned their lives around after the ordeal also. So there must be something to a heaven and a hell.
Even my aunt who pronounced dead four different times told what she saw that would be impossible to see unless her spirit left her body.
There are many stories out there that were deemed valid, and/or proven valid by the reports given by the person who came back to life.
Like the lady who was pronounced dead and the doctors had left the room leaving only an aide there to prepare her for the morgue. The lady looked at the aide and started talking to her. She called the doctors back in, and they got her closed up and to the ICU where she talked to her mother. She said she met a lady in death who claimed to be her older sister. This is when the mother admitted to having another child who died before this sister was born. It was never mentioned in the home. Yet this lady knew quite a bit about her sister she could not have learned from anyone except her sister.
I'v run across stories like this many times over the years.
There are also stories from folks who never saw the white light to go to that others have seen, and felt compelled to head into the light. What they saw was only red and darkness and were very afraid. A few of these turned their lives around after the ordeal also. So there must be something to a heaven and a hell.
Re: Smug As A Bug
I must admit that I've read about and heard other people tell stories similar to yours. My own mother related an out of body experience when she was in the hospital on one occasion. She didn't know what it was but her description of what she was experiencing fit the out of body experience profile to a tee.
My thoughts about spirits (life energy) and the mind compel me to think they are two different things. The life energy allows otherwise ordinary chemicals to live and breath. In the case of human beings the brain is capable of self-awareness which is about as close as I can get to describing what the mind is. This self-aware mind is in itself a topic of philosophical debate in the sense that nobody has yet determined if the mind is solely the product of what goes on between our ears and resides in that space, or is it something external? Regardless of it's physical location the mind exists only as long as the life energy is flowing in the body. That is to say, as long as the brain is functioning (perhaps not conscious in the traditional sense) a mind is present. The brain and the mind are intimately connected but the interaction between the two is what all the discussion is about.
While the death process can be described clinically I've not run across any explanation of how the spirit exits or the mind collapses, or at least I've not run across any credible explanation. All we know is self-awareness ceases and the body is no longer animated; brain dead. That's good enough for most coroners. The process of losing life and collapsing self-awareness isn't likely to be a simple on or off event. The process of dying continues even after the brain is declared functionally dead. In other words there are stages that the body and mind go through before the act of dying is complete. All those stories you and I have heard about returning from the dead may not be exactly correct. Those people are returning from a partially dead state and we certainly have been amazed by the narratives of such events.
My thoughts about spirits (life energy) and the mind compel me to think they are two different things. The life energy allows otherwise ordinary chemicals to live and breath. In the case of human beings the brain is capable of self-awareness which is about as close as I can get to describing what the mind is. This self-aware mind is in itself a topic of philosophical debate in the sense that nobody has yet determined if the mind is solely the product of what goes on between our ears and resides in that space, or is it something external? Regardless of it's physical location the mind exists only as long as the life energy is flowing in the body. That is to say, as long as the brain is functioning (perhaps not conscious in the traditional sense) a mind is present. The brain and the mind are intimately connected but the interaction between the two is what all the discussion is about.
While the death process can be described clinically I've not run across any explanation of how the spirit exits or the mind collapses, or at least I've not run across any credible explanation. All we know is self-awareness ceases and the body is no longer animated; brain dead. That's good enough for most coroners. The process of losing life and collapsing self-awareness isn't likely to be a simple on or off event. The process of dying continues even after the brain is declared functionally dead. In other words there are stages that the body and mind go through before the act of dying is complete. All those stories you and I have heard about returning from the dead may not be exactly correct. Those people are returning from a partially dead state and we certainly have been amazed by the narratives of such events.
Re: Smug As A Bug
I think I mentioned once in the past that my aunt's doctor had the ceiling panels removed from the room in which he had pronounced my aunt dead, just to see if what she claimed she saw was even possible.
To his amazement, the things she described up there, even the things written on the tops of the ceiling panels was dead on.
After that, he placed some articles of specific shapes on top of cabinets in his surgical rooms, hidden back against the walls so they could not be seen from the ground from any place in the room.
And to his surprise, a few patients who came back, described a few of them with great clarity as to shape and color.
Even so, he still has no explanation for it, other than our thoughts are not limited to our being inside our body.
I guess until we actually have a way to test the phenomenon it will continue to be unexplained and often not believed.
Personally, I think our brain does a whole lot more than we realize it is possible of doing.
How can one person have a photographic memory, and another not remember the whole phone number they just read to dial it?
To his amazement, the things she described up there, even the things written on the tops of the ceiling panels was dead on.
After that, he placed some articles of specific shapes on top of cabinets in his surgical rooms, hidden back against the walls so they could not be seen from the ground from any place in the room.
And to his surprise, a few patients who came back, described a few of them with great clarity as to shape and color.
Even so, he still has no explanation for it, other than our thoughts are not limited to our being inside our body.
I guess until we actually have a way to test the phenomenon it will continue to be unexplained and often not believed.
Personally, I think our brain does a whole lot more than we realize it is possible of doing.
How can one person have a photographic memory, and another not remember the whole phone number they just read to dial it?
Re: Smug As A Bug
As long as we are alive the brain is clicking and clacking regardless of our state of consciousness. The difference in performance isn't that hard to understand. No, I don't know what contributes to performance but I do know the chemicals and the DNA inside each person's brain is not identical. How many times have you heard that a person's mental/physical health is due to some chemical imbalance? The imbalance is why you and I are taking in extra chemicals in the form of prescription drugs. I'm sure you can understand the dynamics of illnesses, and the same factors must have a effect on the way the brain operates in each individual. Some are well tuned for memory, some for emotions, some for logic, and some need a total tune up. LOL To me the functioning of the brain is ... shall I say ... a no-brainer? Self-awareness and the mind needs further investigation.
Re: Smug As A Bug
Makes sense to me, hi hi.
I used to work with a guy down at Sverdrup & Parcel, who was a cracker jack engineer.
But he had a few mental issues.
Right in the middle of working, he would like freeze up for about 5 to 15 seconds, and not move a muscle.
Then he would look up, glance around, and mumble to himself, "OK, I see I'm at work, get busy."
Then other times, instead of just freezing up, for a moment he would think he was somewhere else.
We were having lunch one day, and he was looking around for a cupholder, like the kind on a boat, so his drink didn't tip over when we hit a wave.
In almost all cases, he would look up, glance around the room, and say "Oh, I'm at lunch, eat."
He claimed he was just prone to daydreaming.
We didn't think so the way he would just suddenly freeze up and not move for a few seconds.
He was working there at least 15 years before I started working there, and he's touted as one of their best engineers, never been late for work once in all those years either.
In our lab at the florist, we had a couple of botanists, both older women, who studied plants in ways one would never think of. They did their jobs of course, first. But always had some side projects going on, not necessarily related to what they needed to do for us. One had written several small books about the characterizations of plants. And talked extensively about their vascular system, and the different functions each cell in a plant perform.
Often there was a college student or two, sometimes a small group, who came to see something they were working on.
But on those days, it was mostly about the normal things that had to do with propagation, and hybridization.
Both of these older gals in the lab believed there was only a tiny difference between plant life and animal life.
I often wonder what they would have discovered if they knew about DNA back then?
One of the things they were always attempting was to cross genera.
In the history of botany, only once was this achieved, and that was with a Fatsia, and a Hedera Helix. To get a Fatsia plant.
But at the time, those two plants were considered different genera.
But in later years it was discovered they are of the same genera, just different species within that genera.
There have been a lot of changes in the Taxonomy Tables since the discovery of DNA.
And even now, as we learn more and more about the DNA strands, we find mistakes made in the early DNA sequencing studies.
Although in the greenhouses we never carried trees per se. Left those to the tree growers.
But we did do a lot with miniature trees kept indoors in pots.
Like having trees with branches in different color blooms, and different fruits on the miniature fruiting types.
I sorta miss the place, but not all the work involved there.
I used to work with a guy down at Sverdrup & Parcel, who was a cracker jack engineer.
But he had a few mental issues.
Right in the middle of working, he would like freeze up for about 5 to 15 seconds, and not move a muscle.
Then he would look up, glance around, and mumble to himself, "OK, I see I'm at work, get busy."
Then other times, instead of just freezing up, for a moment he would think he was somewhere else.
We were having lunch one day, and he was looking around for a cupholder, like the kind on a boat, so his drink didn't tip over when we hit a wave.
In almost all cases, he would look up, glance around the room, and say "Oh, I'm at lunch, eat."
He claimed he was just prone to daydreaming.
We didn't think so the way he would just suddenly freeze up and not move for a few seconds.
He was working there at least 15 years before I started working there, and he's touted as one of their best engineers, never been late for work once in all those years either.
In our lab at the florist, we had a couple of botanists, both older women, who studied plants in ways one would never think of. They did their jobs of course, first. But always had some side projects going on, not necessarily related to what they needed to do for us. One had written several small books about the characterizations of plants. And talked extensively about their vascular system, and the different functions each cell in a plant perform.
Often there was a college student or two, sometimes a small group, who came to see something they were working on.
But on those days, it was mostly about the normal things that had to do with propagation, and hybridization.
Both of these older gals in the lab believed there was only a tiny difference between plant life and animal life.
I often wonder what they would have discovered if they knew about DNA back then?
One of the things they were always attempting was to cross genera.
In the history of botany, only once was this achieved, and that was with a Fatsia, and a Hedera Helix. To get a Fatsia plant.
But at the time, those two plants were considered different genera.
But in later years it was discovered they are of the same genera, just different species within that genera.
There have been a lot of changes in the Taxonomy Tables since the discovery of DNA.
And even now, as we learn more and more about the DNA strands, we find mistakes made in the early DNA sequencing studies.
Although in the greenhouses we never carried trees per se. Left those to the tree growers.
But we did do a lot with miniature trees kept indoors in pots.
Like having trees with branches in different color blooms, and different fruits on the miniature fruiting types.
I sorta miss the place, but not all the work involved there.
Re: Smug As A Bug
Just about all the jobs I had at Motorola involved some kind of stress. It wasn't just a matter of performing my expected tasks. My first job was a line inspector who visibly looked over IF boards that were going to be assembled into a radio. I was told that somebody's life could depend on how well I did my job, such as the radio this IF board went into was used by an EMS team trying to rescue somebody in distress. You don't want the radio to fail under those circumstance. Emergency communications was Motorola's core competency back then and they depended on me to keep up their reputation for being the best in the industry. By the time I gave them my best thirty years we were building cell phones and the stress was to keep the computers running seamlessly so that the production lines could continue to function and not lose thousands of dollars for every minute they were shut down. There were a few irate managers I had to confront in my days, but during the actual crisis I was actually quite calm, cool, and collected. I had to be in order to perform flawlessly and keep down time to a minimum. The final few years were filled with an entirely different kind of stress. That's when the company decided they were terminating 40,000 people so that they could move operations off shore. My job was eliminated and they only kept me around because I had thirty plus years invested in working for them. They offered me early retirement but I didn't take it for a long time. I was hoping my past experience would get me through that crisis, but it didn't. So I had to retire ten years earlier than planned. It was traumatic and stressful that first year trying to figure how to make ends meet. As it happened Motorola was very kind to me and gave me a great severance package and extended my healthcare benefits to age 65. That took off a lot of the stress, but then I realized I no longer had anything to worry about. After 35 years of working under somebody's thumb, having no more responsibilities was quite a shock. Several of my colleagues didn't do so well and died a few years after the forced retirement. I became stubborn and decided I'm going to make them pay me a pension until I'm age 93. After that I won't give a damn anymore. 
Re: Smug As A Bug
I can't say many of my jobs caused much stress at the time I was doing them. That seemed to come later after a particular project was completed. When they called us in to make last minute emergency changes.
Or in the case of MRTC when I had to fly down to a pipeline repair and do the drawings in the field, and order the materials needed. You had to know who was doing what jobs so you could order the add-on things they wanted. Most of the X-Ray Welders were under individual contracts, and each of them had certain things they named in the contracts they get as part of their job. Some of the things seemed quite odd until you got to know these guys well. One guy got a new waist down apron every three days, another got a new pair of gloves every week, and one guy got a new pair of boots every month. All of them got new welders masks of their preferred brand every week also. The one that surprised me the most was off all the hi-tech welders on the job, one of them got a new pick-up truck at the end of every contract. But then he used his own truck on the job and not a company owned truck too.
The only pension I get is the one I paid into where my late wife worked. It is only $42.01 per month. But that little bit helps!
When I left Sverdrup & Parcel, I got a check for my accrued pension all at once, because I had not been vested. Same thing with MRTC, got a check from them to for my accrued pension. Neither check was for very much, less than 500 bucks.
I got diddly squat from McDonnell-Douglas when I left them.
I enjoyed working for myself. There is some stress, but not so much when you are ahead of the game. It's when the bottom falls out of everything over something you have no control over. When I didn't have enough money to cover the bills, only then did my stress levels soar, in some cases to exceedingly high levels. But you learn to just take it all in stride and carry on.
Every once in a while I talk to folks who have managed to get their SS check upped by a little bit. This gave me an incentive to try to do that myself, but it never panned out. Each of them had special situations that warranted it. I even tried claiming one of those situations the last time I tried, and almost thought I was making headway, until they found out they already paid it out in the form of disability to my late wife. Her attempting to go back to work killed that, and cost a major drop in her SS value too. She never lived to retirement age, so I thought it would all be there. But they say no it is not, of course they do, hi hi. Now if I didn't get remarried, I could be getting like 1,600 bucks a month off of her SS value.
Or in the case of MRTC when I had to fly down to a pipeline repair and do the drawings in the field, and order the materials needed. You had to know who was doing what jobs so you could order the add-on things they wanted. Most of the X-Ray Welders were under individual contracts, and each of them had certain things they named in the contracts they get as part of their job. Some of the things seemed quite odd until you got to know these guys well. One guy got a new waist down apron every three days, another got a new pair of gloves every week, and one guy got a new pair of boots every month. All of them got new welders masks of their preferred brand every week also. The one that surprised me the most was off all the hi-tech welders on the job, one of them got a new pick-up truck at the end of every contract. But then he used his own truck on the job and not a company owned truck too.
The only pension I get is the one I paid into where my late wife worked. It is only $42.01 per month. But that little bit helps!
When I left Sverdrup & Parcel, I got a check for my accrued pension all at once, because I had not been vested. Same thing with MRTC, got a check from them to for my accrued pension. Neither check was for very much, less than 500 bucks.
I got diddly squat from McDonnell-Douglas when I left them.
I enjoyed working for myself. There is some stress, but not so much when you are ahead of the game. It's when the bottom falls out of everything over something you have no control over. When I didn't have enough money to cover the bills, only then did my stress levels soar, in some cases to exceedingly high levels. But you learn to just take it all in stride and carry on.
Every once in a while I talk to folks who have managed to get their SS check upped by a little bit. This gave me an incentive to try to do that myself, but it never panned out. Each of them had special situations that warranted it. I even tried claiming one of those situations the last time I tried, and almost thought I was making headway, until they found out they already paid it out in the form of disability to my late wife. Her attempting to go back to work killed that, and cost a major drop in her SS value too. She never lived to retirement age, so I thought it would all be there. But they say no it is not, of course they do, hi hi. Now if I didn't get remarried, I could be getting like 1,600 bucks a month off of her SS value.
Re: Smug As A Bug
When it came to planning for retirement I was more lucky than I was smart. Motorola, as it turned out, was very generous and considerate of it's employees. That was due to the family atmosphere under which they operated for many years. Participating in profit sharing was a condition of employment. Originally I didn't want to participate, but I also wanted to keep my job. We had a choice of what percentage of our pay we could contribute to the fund, which in turn determined how much the company matched with their contribution. I took the max deduction just because somebody told me it was a good idea. It is that profit sharing fund that kept me financially solvent for ten years after my early retirement. Likewise social security deductions could be varied. I took the max there too and did well for many years. But then they upped the limit for the maximum contribution and I wasn't making enough to reach that limit every year. Thus I retired with only 80% of my final income as a benefit. Then, just because they could, Motorola created a pension fund about half way through my employment with them. It was totally funded by the company and I didn't make any contributions to that. There were some scary years when it looked like Motorola was going to crash and burn, and take my pension with them. One of the things they did, however, was hand off the pension fund to Prudential Financial. They bought us all annuities in effect. So, now, even if Motorola sinks into Lake Michigan, I still have an annuity with Prudential. I didn't plan any of that. They forced it all upon me. Looking back I can see now why it's a good idea to work for some big heavy duty company with a lot of resources and a great product to sell. I'm certain I would not be this well off if I were in business for myself all those years. I'm no Bill Gates, ya know?
Being an independent contractor probably is the best of all worlds. The only issue there is that you need to be clever enough to plan for the future, which is what Motorola did for me. I would not have started my retirement savings until I was 15 or 20 years away from the end of my career. That's not enough as it turns out. The problem is you never know when your career will, or must, end.
Being an independent contractor probably is the best of all worlds. The only issue there is that you need to be clever enough to plan for the future, which is what Motorola did for me. I would not have started my retirement savings until I was 15 or 20 years away from the end of my career. That's not enough as it turns out. The problem is you never know when your career will, or must, end.
Re: Smug As A Bug
My uncle worked for Ford his entire life, and his situation was much like yours, they had great pension plans and a few other things, so when he had to take an early retirement, he was set for life.
If it were not for my late wife's medical bills burning up my nearly 1 million dollar nest egg, plus a few other pitfalls, I would be doing good now too. But things we cannot foresee can wipe us out overnight, or in a couple of stages anyhow. Heck, I had an inventory of 21 houses in my business, 6 of which had long-term tenants, the rest were for renovation purposes. Kept selling them every month to cover medical bills after her insurance capped out. Then the two renovation properties I had left, and were near completion or sold when 9/11 hit, caused me to lose out on those, and all 6 of the rental houses I sold for zero profit.
In my case, no matter how much I planned or put away, it all went up in smoke. Plus losing my Wonder Plants business too.
It is just amazing how fast things can go backwards and in the worst way.
One of my aunts who worked for Famous Barr Department stores her whole life, had an excellent pension plan, but it was totally held by Famous Barr. When they went belly up, her pension went right up in smoke too. She ended up selling her house and moving in with my mom for a few years, then moved to another aunts house for a few years, then got a housing apartment through the government, and that is where she was until she died. There were only two other white persons in the entire complex, and the place was always a mess. Both times I went to visit her while she was there, my car got broken into, one time by breaking out the back passenger side window. The only thing they stole the first time was a thermos bottle of soup, and the second time they got my 2-meter handi-talkie which I had hidden under the seat. Both times my glove boxes were open, and the things in them dumped on the floor. Nothing of consequence was in the glove boxes anyhow.
The other times I visited her, we met at a pharmacy restaurant next door to her housing complex. One of the few pharmacies that still had a dining counter, but that was a lot of years ago now too.
If it were not for my late wife's medical bills burning up my nearly 1 million dollar nest egg, plus a few other pitfalls, I would be doing good now too. But things we cannot foresee can wipe us out overnight, or in a couple of stages anyhow. Heck, I had an inventory of 21 houses in my business, 6 of which had long-term tenants, the rest were for renovation purposes. Kept selling them every month to cover medical bills after her insurance capped out. Then the two renovation properties I had left, and were near completion or sold when 9/11 hit, caused me to lose out on those, and all 6 of the rental houses I sold for zero profit.
In my case, no matter how much I planned or put away, it all went up in smoke. Plus losing my Wonder Plants business too.
It is just amazing how fast things can go backwards and in the worst way.
One of my aunts who worked for Famous Barr Department stores her whole life, had an excellent pension plan, but it was totally held by Famous Barr. When they went belly up, her pension went right up in smoke too. She ended up selling her house and moving in with my mom for a few years, then moved to another aunts house for a few years, then got a housing apartment through the government, and that is where she was until she died. There were only two other white persons in the entire complex, and the place was always a mess. Both times I went to visit her while she was there, my car got broken into, one time by breaking out the back passenger side window. The only thing they stole the first time was a thermos bottle of soup, and the second time they got my 2-meter handi-talkie which I had hidden under the seat. Both times my glove boxes were open, and the things in them dumped on the floor. Nothing of consequence was in the glove boxes anyhow.
The other times I visited her, we met at a pharmacy restaurant next door to her housing complex. One of the few pharmacies that still had a dining counter, but that was a lot of years ago now too.
Re: Smug As A Bug
Things here could be a lot worse than they are financially. I know of what you speak when it comes to medical disasters. In the final analysis you got to ask yourself how much is a life worth, and I know the answer. A million dollars is no substitute for a real live human being. It wouldn't take much for me to arrive at the same kind of situation. At my age the risks start to increase exponentially and so do the insurance premiums used to cover those risks. I have two daughters who I think would reach out if I needed a place to live. I'd not want to put that kind of burden on either of them and would feel bad if it ever came to that. Then, too, they are both over 50 and have problems of their own.
We have chewed the rag about the social and political structures that brought both of us to where we currently are in our lives. We both love America in our own ways, but we also both see the shortcomings of the present system. I don't think it would work out well if everybody was socially equal, but what is happening at present isn't good either. Every person should have access to the bare minimum requirements of life. I know for example you are not taking all the medications you should be because you don't have the resources to do so. It doesn't have to be that way; our system of governance has the resources to assure everybody of their basic needs.
We have chewed the rag about the social and political structures that brought both of us to where we currently are in our lives. We both love America in our own ways, but we also both see the shortcomings of the present system. I don't think it would work out well if everybody was socially equal, but what is happening at present isn't good either. Every person should have access to the bare minimum requirements of life. I know for example you are not taking all the medications you should be because you don't have the resources to do so. It doesn't have to be that way; our system of governance has the resources to assure everybody of their basic needs.
Re: Smug As A Bug
At the time my late wife Ruth was sick, we did have excellent insurance, so almost everything was covered.
It paid for her 5 bypass surgery, and as her lungs gave out, it covered our liquid oxygen tanks and refills.
She was in and out of the hospital constantly. In for a week, out for two weeks, then back in again.
Because of my savings and investments, I was able to cover some things for her that insurance did not cover at all at the time.
She just happened to be in the hospital when her insurance capped out. I was not notified of this at the time, and the darn hospital had her transferred down to a state run facility in the city.
Needless to say, I had a few choice words with them, and got her transferred back, at my expense.
It was after this that I ended up paying anywhere from 20k up to around 26k per month to the hospital and others. Her bill had to be paid in full while she was back home again, before they would take her again. And also, now that insurance capped out, nothing was covered, not her oxygen, pills, shots, or anything else.
I ended up selling 12 of my 21 houses off, one at a time, most unfinished to other renovators. Refinanced my own home twice so now I owed more than it was worth. Her last three weeks on this earth, unable to get help anywhere because I owned assets, although I only had the six rentals and two other properties I was working on left, I finished one of the properties and sold it to make sure the hospital bill was paid up before she had to go in again.
During the time she was in the hospital, I would work on the last renovation home I owned, hoping to finish and sell it before she would have to go into the hospital again. The rental income barely covered my current house payment. I was basically flat broke and borrowed 10k from the SBA to finish that last house. Bought the materials and put them in the house to use.
On the day Ruth was supposed to be discharged, I was sitting there with her, she took a downturn she did not recover from.
I used what was left of the SBA money to pay the unpaid parts of her funeral plan, which could have got me into trouble.
After the funeral I went right back to work on the renovation house and although I did get it finished, and had to replace some of the materials which were stolen, along with the outdoor part of the AC unit. I had one renovator house I completely forgot about.
I did manage to sell it to another renovator so came up with enough money to pay back my SBA loan, and had enough money to cover about 4 more months of house payments.
After the last house I was working on sold, I used part of that money to buy another, which would be the last renovation house I ever did, and it turned out to be a loss to me after 9/11 because the buyer defaulted on his mortgage so I lost my carry-back, which was the profit I would have made.
This is when I started selling off what collectibles I owned, that were not lost in my downtown office a few years earlier. I was doing the eBay thing and making good money at it, as long as I still had nice things to sell.
The income from the six rentals, my eBay sales, and my little tabletop aquarium products business was moving me closer to the blue side of the ledger. I was even able to pay down my home mortgage a bit so the payments were not so high.
I thought I was getting back on my feet once again, finally, and could take a breather of sorts.
This is when I met Debi, and started making the 1,600 mile round trip every other weekend to date her.
When we got married, things were looking great. Then a year later, 9/11 hit, and all but one of my tenants could no longer pay their rent. I didn't boot them out though. But put all the rental houses up for sale, so that they came out zero on the bottom line. I didn't want to do this, but I had to unload them fast before they became an expenses to me.
Knowing I would not have the funds necessary to keep up those high mortgage payments on my house, I called in an auctioneer to sell everything in my house, other than my clothes, and family keepsakes, and pictures. Everything else went!
I also put my house up for sale as well. From the auction, and my sale of the house, I ended up with enough money to pay off any and all debts I still had, and was left with 3 thousand dollars to my name, and discovered we only had 3 days not 30 days to vacate the house. So, we were technically homeless. I used 2500 bucks to buy a cargo trailer so I could move Debi back home to her parents house in Knoxville, and I stayed in my mom's basement to help her prepare her house for sale, as she was moving into a seniors apartment center. I would not be paid for the work I did at my mom's. But did luck out and get an order for my tabletop business I did while there. Then I had some medical problems, which I won't get into here, other than to say, it was doubtful I would be alive in six to eight months. But as you can see, I'm still alive and kicking now 17 years later.
I've already talked about living in a room and working on a house for us I sold after Debi's father died suddenly, and left me to take care of Debi's mom with bone cancer until she passed away.
I have a few friends who live in England under socialized medicine. It is not all it is cracked up to be. One friends daughter need an operation that is not covered in the socialist plan, so they had to beg, borrow, and steal, to get her daughters operation, long after she should have had it, so she is not in good of shape as she would have been had they covered the operation when she needed it the most. I basically hear the same complaints from others on socialized medicine as I do from those who use our VA medical plans. Takes forever and a day, and a lot is not covered there either.
The retail price of the Perforomist I'm supposed to be taking, but cannot afford costs $1,514.09 per month This is for only 120 ML of the diluted product. The actual ingredient is only 20 MCG in 2 ML solution.
Calculating that out, I'm getting 1,200 MCG for that price.
I wonder how much that would be if it was broken down and the price shown as a per gallon rate.
I know it would be astronomical! Up in the millions of dollars per gallon.
How can they get by with charging such ridiculous prices?
It paid for her 5 bypass surgery, and as her lungs gave out, it covered our liquid oxygen tanks and refills.
She was in and out of the hospital constantly. In for a week, out for two weeks, then back in again.
Because of my savings and investments, I was able to cover some things for her that insurance did not cover at all at the time.
She just happened to be in the hospital when her insurance capped out. I was not notified of this at the time, and the darn hospital had her transferred down to a state run facility in the city.
Needless to say, I had a few choice words with them, and got her transferred back, at my expense.
It was after this that I ended up paying anywhere from 20k up to around 26k per month to the hospital and others. Her bill had to be paid in full while she was back home again, before they would take her again. And also, now that insurance capped out, nothing was covered, not her oxygen, pills, shots, or anything else.
I ended up selling 12 of my 21 houses off, one at a time, most unfinished to other renovators. Refinanced my own home twice so now I owed more than it was worth. Her last three weeks on this earth, unable to get help anywhere because I owned assets, although I only had the six rentals and two other properties I was working on left, I finished one of the properties and sold it to make sure the hospital bill was paid up before she had to go in again.
During the time she was in the hospital, I would work on the last renovation home I owned, hoping to finish and sell it before she would have to go into the hospital again. The rental income barely covered my current house payment. I was basically flat broke and borrowed 10k from the SBA to finish that last house. Bought the materials and put them in the house to use.
On the day Ruth was supposed to be discharged, I was sitting there with her, she took a downturn she did not recover from.
I used what was left of the SBA money to pay the unpaid parts of her funeral plan, which could have got me into trouble.
After the funeral I went right back to work on the renovation house and although I did get it finished, and had to replace some of the materials which were stolen, along with the outdoor part of the AC unit. I had one renovator house I completely forgot about.
I did manage to sell it to another renovator so came up with enough money to pay back my SBA loan, and had enough money to cover about 4 more months of house payments.
After the last house I was working on sold, I used part of that money to buy another, which would be the last renovation house I ever did, and it turned out to be a loss to me after 9/11 because the buyer defaulted on his mortgage so I lost my carry-back, which was the profit I would have made.
This is when I started selling off what collectibles I owned, that were not lost in my downtown office a few years earlier. I was doing the eBay thing and making good money at it, as long as I still had nice things to sell.
The income from the six rentals, my eBay sales, and my little tabletop aquarium products business was moving me closer to the blue side of the ledger. I was even able to pay down my home mortgage a bit so the payments were not so high.
I thought I was getting back on my feet once again, finally, and could take a breather of sorts.
This is when I met Debi, and started making the 1,600 mile round trip every other weekend to date her.
When we got married, things were looking great. Then a year later, 9/11 hit, and all but one of my tenants could no longer pay their rent. I didn't boot them out though. But put all the rental houses up for sale, so that they came out zero on the bottom line. I didn't want to do this, but I had to unload them fast before they became an expenses to me.
Knowing I would not have the funds necessary to keep up those high mortgage payments on my house, I called in an auctioneer to sell everything in my house, other than my clothes, and family keepsakes, and pictures. Everything else went!
I also put my house up for sale as well. From the auction, and my sale of the house, I ended up with enough money to pay off any and all debts I still had, and was left with 3 thousand dollars to my name, and discovered we only had 3 days not 30 days to vacate the house. So, we were technically homeless. I used 2500 bucks to buy a cargo trailer so I could move Debi back home to her parents house in Knoxville, and I stayed in my mom's basement to help her prepare her house for sale, as she was moving into a seniors apartment center. I would not be paid for the work I did at my mom's. But did luck out and get an order for my tabletop business I did while there. Then I had some medical problems, which I won't get into here, other than to say, it was doubtful I would be alive in six to eight months. But as you can see, I'm still alive and kicking now 17 years later.
I've already talked about living in a room and working on a house for us I sold after Debi's father died suddenly, and left me to take care of Debi's mom with bone cancer until she passed away.
I have a few friends who live in England under socialized medicine. It is not all it is cracked up to be. One friends daughter need an operation that is not covered in the socialist plan, so they had to beg, borrow, and steal, to get her daughters operation, long after she should have had it, so she is not in good of shape as she would have been had they covered the operation when she needed it the most. I basically hear the same complaints from others on socialized medicine as I do from those who use our VA medical plans. Takes forever and a day, and a lot is not covered there either.
The retail price of the Perforomist I'm supposed to be taking, but cannot afford costs $1,514.09 per month This is for only 120 ML of the diluted product. The actual ingredient is only 20 MCG in 2 ML solution.
Calculating that out, I'm getting 1,200 MCG for that price.
I wonder how much that would be if it was broken down and the price shown as a per gallon rate.
I know it would be astronomical! Up in the millions of dollars per gallon.
How can they get by with charging such ridiculous prices?
Re: Smug As A Bug
The simple answer to that is they don't sell the stuff by the gallon and it costs quite a bit to distribute it in the quantities the average patient needs.I know it would be astronomical! Up in the millions of dollars per gallon.
How can they get by with charging such ridiculous prices?
I've heard a few people in Canada and England express the same thoughts you do about socialized medicine. When asked, not one of them was willing to change to something akin to what we are doing in this country. If both systems are so bad, but for different reasons, what is left? The answer is look in the mirror. What is see is what you get without appropriate support from outside sources.
If you were the only person I knew who had suffered financial disaster due to medical problems, I'd consider it an aberration. The truth is that you are not the only person I know who can't afford to take proper care of themselves. I don't know how widespread the problem is. All too often I hear people simply accept their fate. Perhaps that is the best solution. I'm not so naive as to think that the government can solve all problems by just tossing a few trillion dollars into the pot. However, I do know there are enough resources in this country to go a long way to mend a broken system. I suppose it's a question of ethics to ask if it is the government's responsibility to care for it's citizens' well being. My guess is that it's not anywhere in our constitution. So be it. Regardless, I'll still feel a bit sympathetic when I hear of sick people who lack the resources to meet their minimum needs.
Re: Smug As A Bug
I socialized medicine, there are LONG Waiting Lists for nearly everything.
This is why so many still have private insurance over and above what the government does pay for.
I had an excellent insurance policy, but when I turned 65 it was cancelled since I was now eligible for Medicare.
Trouble is, with Medicare, you still have to buy a Supplemental Plan to help cover what Medicare don't, and a Drug Plan.
When you deduct from you SS check the Drug Plan and Supplemental insurance, it takes a huge bite out of what is left over.
Then Medicare pulls the dumb shit of making us pay out of pocket 400 to 600 dollars FIRST before it kicks in, than after around 4 grand of payouts they dump you into the doughnut hole where they pay nothing until you pay out another 6 grand. Which by the way, for many, is more than what our SS check is to start with.
The government can afford to send billions overseas, and pay all the poly-TICK-ians, exorbitant salaries for LIFE, and cover all their needs, but then ignore the needs of the people.
Nearly every poly-TICK-ian, no matter how poor they were, become Millionaires on a government salary.
The only way this can happen is by them taking Bribes under the table!
But of course, they made it Legal for themselves to take Bribes by calling it Lobbying Fees or Donations.
Let's take a look at Insulin. The inventors gave the product away for FREE to keep the cost down.
It is very cheap to produce too. But Big Pharma comes up with ways to price gouge everyone for most versions of it.
Look at Epinephrine too, darn stuff is so cheap, it is almost free, BUT they won't sell it by itself, they will only sell it in a plastic pen for 400 bucks and up. Mighty expensive pen that you don't really need to use it.
Trump got the cost back down to closer to a fair price, and the first thing Biden did was drive the price back up higher than it was before. WHY?
This is why so many still have private insurance over and above what the government does pay for.
I had an excellent insurance policy, but when I turned 65 it was cancelled since I was now eligible for Medicare.
Trouble is, with Medicare, you still have to buy a Supplemental Plan to help cover what Medicare don't, and a Drug Plan.
When you deduct from you SS check the Drug Plan and Supplemental insurance, it takes a huge bite out of what is left over.
Then Medicare pulls the dumb shit of making us pay out of pocket 400 to 600 dollars FIRST before it kicks in, than after around 4 grand of payouts they dump you into the doughnut hole where they pay nothing until you pay out another 6 grand. Which by the way, for many, is more than what our SS check is to start with.
The government can afford to send billions overseas, and pay all the poly-TICK-ians, exorbitant salaries for LIFE, and cover all their needs, but then ignore the needs of the people.
Nearly every poly-TICK-ian, no matter how poor they were, become Millionaires on a government salary.
The only way this can happen is by them taking Bribes under the table!
But of course, they made it Legal for themselves to take Bribes by calling it Lobbying Fees or Donations.
Let's take a look at Insulin. The inventors gave the product away for FREE to keep the cost down.
It is very cheap to produce too. But Big Pharma comes up with ways to price gouge everyone for most versions of it.
Look at Epinephrine too, darn stuff is so cheap, it is almost free, BUT they won't sell it by itself, they will only sell it in a plastic pen for 400 bucks and up. Mighty expensive pen that you don't really need to use it.
Trump got the cost back down to closer to a fair price, and the first thing Biden did was drive the price back up higher than it was before. WHY?
Re: Smug As A Bug
This is not the first time you have explained what you are experiencing with healthcare. The people who are on what you call socialized medicine in Canada and in England (people I've talked to personally) are appalled by your vivid description of healthcare in this country. They do make the mistake of saying it's all free where they live, which, of course, it is not. There are no insurance premiums and there are no switches of coverage at age 65, but every working person pays a tax into the healthcare system. That is, EVERYBODY who works pays that tax and EVERYBODY gets the benefits, such as they are. In our present system not everybody can afford to buy insurance to begin with and the shortcomings in minimal coverage are enough to kill a person literally. Plus, those people paying a healthcare tax in England and Canada are not making insurance company executives wealthy. There is no lobbying going on either because the providers work for the government. Somehow, and I admit I'm not clear how, those people think it's better their way.
We may not agree in philosophies, but regardless of that fact I still have much sympathy for you and many other Americans who are experiencing the same problems. The well being of American citizens should not be politicized. If a government agency providing adequate and equal healthcare for all it's citizens is socialistic, and thus supposed to be something negative, then the best solution would be for the government to drop all it's support and allow it's citizens to fend for themselves. Think of where you would be if that were the case today. Oddly enough the previous administration was working in that very direction.
We may not agree in philosophies, but regardless of that fact I still have much sympathy for you and many other Americans who are experiencing the same problems. The well being of American citizens should not be politicized. If a government agency providing adequate and equal healthcare for all it's citizens is socialistic, and thus supposed to be something negative, then the best solution would be for the government to drop all it's support and allow it's citizens to fend for themselves. Think of where you would be if that were the case today. Oddly enough the previous administration was working in that very direction.
Re: Smug As A Bug
FWIW: My pulmonologist moved here from Canada, because the regular MDs up there do most of what he does, and the few patients he does get, the government pays less than they do to an MD. Not enough folks with private insurance to keep him afloat, which is why he moved here.
Also, for his patients on Medicare, they pay more than than he was getting in Canada too.
One of my wife's doctors, I don't remember which now, moved here from England, for much the same reason. He earns four times more here seeing the same number of patients. Plus he could prescribe medicines he knows works and which are covered by most U.S. insurance companies. Medications normally not funded by the medical services in England, but folks with private insurance could get them for a short time is all.
Medicare is not free, and I pay $148.50 per month for it, deducted from my SS.
The Medicare Drug Plan costs me $31.90 per month, deducted from my SS.
My Supplemental Insurance I pay out of my pocket costs $183.08 per month.
My Co-Pays for the year, divided by 12 months, averages $86.14 per month, if I skip buying the expensive medications.
If I do buy my Performist, it costs me $139.76 per month, but will put me into the doughnut hole by April if I do take it.
And if I land in the doughnut hole, none of my drugs are covered until I pay out over 6 grand in drugs.
Even though all of my wife's money goes to pay for her Insulin, they say we make too much money to get discounts.
My wife lands in the doughnut hole in March of every year, so none of her meds are covered for the rest of the year.
This is why she went back to work, was to buy her medications.
And of course we are the wrong color to get on Medicaid, hi hi.
Just like our SS, we paid into it, and our employers matched the amount we paid.
I've been self-employed most of my life, so I had to pay my share, plus what amount an employer would pay, so in essence, I paid in double on my own. This was money PAID TO the Government to cover me in old age. It is NOT a Handout.
The same applies to Medicare, and our drug plans, we pay into them every month, and most folks use a lot less than they are paying in for. Medicare by those who are paying in are not costing the government one red cent.
What is costing is the amount of money they pay out for illegals and others who never paid into the system.
Also, neither Barbara or Ruth lived long enough to collect one dime of their SS. Where did it go?
Also, for his patients on Medicare, they pay more than than he was getting in Canada too.
One of my wife's doctors, I don't remember which now, moved here from England, for much the same reason. He earns four times more here seeing the same number of patients. Plus he could prescribe medicines he knows works and which are covered by most U.S. insurance companies. Medications normally not funded by the medical services in England, but folks with private insurance could get them for a short time is all.
Medicare is not free, and I pay $148.50 per month for it, deducted from my SS.
The Medicare Drug Plan costs me $31.90 per month, deducted from my SS.
My Supplemental Insurance I pay out of my pocket costs $183.08 per month.
My Co-Pays for the year, divided by 12 months, averages $86.14 per month, if I skip buying the expensive medications.
If I do buy my Performist, it costs me $139.76 per month, but will put me into the doughnut hole by April if I do take it.
And if I land in the doughnut hole, none of my drugs are covered until I pay out over 6 grand in drugs.
Even though all of my wife's money goes to pay for her Insulin, they say we make too much money to get discounts.
My wife lands in the doughnut hole in March of every year, so none of her meds are covered for the rest of the year.
This is why she went back to work, was to buy her medications.
And of course we are the wrong color to get on Medicaid, hi hi.
Just like our SS, we paid into it, and our employers matched the amount we paid.
I've been self-employed most of my life, so I had to pay my share, plus what amount an employer would pay, so in essence, I paid in double on my own. This was money PAID TO the Government to cover me in old age. It is NOT a Handout.
The same applies to Medicare, and our drug plans, we pay into them every month, and most folks use a lot less than they are paying in for. Medicare by those who are paying in are not costing the government one red cent.
What is costing is the amount of money they pay out for illegals and others who never paid into the system.
Also, neither Barbara or Ruth lived long enough to collect one dime of their SS. Where did it go?
Re: Smug As A Bug
I too have heard stories from disgruntled healthcare providers who work for the national system. Private practice is indeed way more profitable and very attractive to certain doctors who can't live well within the government system. You talk about the high cost of insurance, and I can't agree with you more. The reason why it is high cost is because many many doctors are getting four times the income than they would on a government subsidized system. Likewise with drugs. It takes a presidential executive order to get some insulin providers to adjust their sales price, and then when that order expires the price goes twice as high to cover the losses they experience from reduced insurance reimbursements. -So, yes, we have the best healthcare anyone on the planet can afford to purchase. The problem is that not everyone can afford to buy into it.
I just handed in the paperwork to have my taxes done. One of the things I gave them was a list of my medical insurance premiums. Combined, my wife and I paid in excess of $14,000 in premiums last year and certainly did not receive that level of medical care. Well, that was last year. The second year we were down here she was in the hospital with a foot problem. That same $14,000 got blown away the first two days in her private room with 24 hour nursing services. Who paid for the remaining days? People like Barbara and Ruth who contributed to the general pool to keep the system working. The system isn't designed to get back what you put into it.
I just handed in the paperwork to have my taxes done. One of the things I gave them was a list of my medical insurance premiums. Combined, my wife and I paid in excess of $14,000 in premiums last year and certainly did not receive that level of medical care. Well, that was last year. The second year we were down here she was in the hospital with a foot problem. That same $14,000 got blown away the first two days in her private room with 24 hour nursing services. Who paid for the remaining days? People like Barbara and Ruth who contributed to the general pool to keep the system working. The system isn't designed to get back what you put into it.
Re: Smug As A Bug
I realize that there is R&D involved in developing and test most drugs that has to be recuperated.
I had a cousin who worked for like 20 years for Imumax or something like that, a drug manufacturing company.
She didn't work out in the manufacturing plant, but did work in the inventory ordering office, so knew pretty much how much they were paying for each of the ingredients, because a good part of her job was dickering with the various vendors.
What she did not handle was the ingredients for the active ingredient made in their lab area. But she did know how much they made to go out to the manufacturing floor.
For most of the pills and capsules they made, less than 6 cents of all the other ingredients went into every 100 pills and about 8 cents in every 100 capsules. She doesn't know the value of the active ingredient, but could guess that most of them were in the 20 to 30 cent range is all, and said it was probably not that much for most of the drugs they made and sold.
They had 9 people working in the lab, each making over 100k per year.
And most who worked in the manufacturing area were making between 14 and 35 dollars per hour.
80% of the patents on the products they did make and sell were long expired.
Not a whole lot ever changed, so her job was fairly mundane, just ordering the same bulk ingredients day in an day out is all.
All of the drugs they made were shipped in bulk packages, mostly to pharmaceutical distributors.
They did do some packaging in larger size bottles, but in all her years there, she never saw any bottle smaller than a quart size bottle come in or go out of the place.
One of the distributors was a packaging plant that put pills in bottles of which she toured a couple of times. The large cartons from her company were dumped into hoppers, and machines filled the bottles so fast you couldn't even see them fly past. The bottles got seals caps labels and went into smaller cartons, and those cartons went into larger cartons, and those larger cartons into cases, where they went down racks to the shipping area, which she did not go into on either tour.
But the thing is, even working for them, she said the prices were outlandishly high even for the bulk cartons. What she figured should sell for about 2 to 3 hundred dollars, they were selling for 6 to 10 thousand dollars to distributors.
I realize how the insurance industry works!
The funds from everyone go into a pool, and how much goes in is based on how much is paid out of the pool on average.
Plus a HUGE amount to cover salaries, buildings, and major profits.
It is very rare for an insurance company to take a BIG Hit, but that is why they keep so much in reserves, just for those oddball happenings. But most of those reserves are also liquid investment too, so they too are earning them money.
Banking is not much different either!
I had a cousin who worked for like 20 years for Imumax or something like that, a drug manufacturing company.
She didn't work out in the manufacturing plant, but did work in the inventory ordering office, so knew pretty much how much they were paying for each of the ingredients, because a good part of her job was dickering with the various vendors.
What she did not handle was the ingredients for the active ingredient made in their lab area. But she did know how much they made to go out to the manufacturing floor.
For most of the pills and capsules they made, less than 6 cents of all the other ingredients went into every 100 pills and about 8 cents in every 100 capsules. She doesn't know the value of the active ingredient, but could guess that most of them were in the 20 to 30 cent range is all, and said it was probably not that much for most of the drugs they made and sold.
They had 9 people working in the lab, each making over 100k per year.
And most who worked in the manufacturing area were making between 14 and 35 dollars per hour.
80% of the patents on the products they did make and sell were long expired.
Not a whole lot ever changed, so her job was fairly mundane, just ordering the same bulk ingredients day in an day out is all.
All of the drugs they made were shipped in bulk packages, mostly to pharmaceutical distributors.
They did do some packaging in larger size bottles, but in all her years there, she never saw any bottle smaller than a quart size bottle come in or go out of the place.
One of the distributors was a packaging plant that put pills in bottles of which she toured a couple of times. The large cartons from her company were dumped into hoppers, and machines filled the bottles so fast you couldn't even see them fly past. The bottles got seals caps labels and went into smaller cartons, and those cartons went into larger cartons, and those larger cartons into cases, where they went down racks to the shipping area, which she did not go into on either tour.
But the thing is, even working for them, she said the prices were outlandishly high even for the bulk cartons. What she figured should sell for about 2 to 3 hundred dollars, they were selling for 6 to 10 thousand dollars to distributors.
I realize how the insurance industry works!
The funds from everyone go into a pool, and how much goes in is based on how much is paid out of the pool on average.
Plus a HUGE amount to cover salaries, buildings, and major profits.
It is very rare for an insurance company to take a BIG Hit, but that is why they keep so much in reserves, just for those oddball happenings. But most of those reserves are also liquid investment too, so they too are earning them money.
Banking is not much different either!
Re: Smug As A Bug
Coming from a business background I am certain you have an appreciation for the costs involved in running a company. The materials that go into a product amount to a small part of the business expenses in most cases. Getting those materials to market in the form of a salable product is where the bulk of the costs come from. You told me yourself that each step in the supply chain doubles the price and then some just because they can. It's hard for me to believe that pharmaceutical companies are doing anything different. Each one of them are publicly owned and must issue an annual report wherein the profits and costs are spelled out clearly. If they don't raise the eyebrows of the SEC examiner, you can assume the drug companies are operating legitimately. It's common to hear criticisms about the CEO's of these companies because those people earn outrageous salaries. It's my opinion that by far the majority of them deserve to earn those millions and I'd not want the responsibilities they must carry. But, like the material costs, executive salaries are not a major part of the final cost of the retail product. In fact insurance companies go a long way to keep the costs under control. Just ask your doctor about the negotiations s/he must go through (or their agent) to reach an agreeable price structure every year. It's amazing to me that doctors find it all worth their trouble.
Does any of that matter if the cost of the drugs you must take are beyond your means? Of course not. I don't know of a fair and equitable solution other than what I have suggested already. Healthcare is outrageously expensive and no single organization has the resources to handle it other than the government. But then it deteriorates into a political debate and we end up with people not being able to care for themselves.
Departing from the topic slightly, I read about what is going on in Texas these days. I'm certain you too are keeping up with things. I learned something that never crossed my mind previously when I read about people receiving electric bills in the 5 digit range. These are legitimate billings for electricity, as it turns out. The people receiving said bills are all on a variable cost program with their supplier. Under normal conditions that variable cost often works out to being cheaper than the average costs you and I pay. The idea is the cost per kwh is less when the demand is low and higher when the demand is high. Since summer is only three months long, it's not too hard to beat the average the rest of us pay all year long. However, when a crisis strikes, and electricity is nowhere to be had, the cost per kwh skyrockets into realms never heard of before. Thus a residence getting a bill for $7,000 is kind of on the low end of that scale. Some folks are being told they owe in excess of $10,000 and they have been without power for several days. While this situation is horrible, it all makes sense. That is exactly what the customers agreed to when they signed into the program. Little did they suspect things would get as bad as they are today.
Does any of that matter if the cost of the drugs you must take are beyond your means? Of course not. I don't know of a fair and equitable solution other than what I have suggested already. Healthcare is outrageously expensive and no single organization has the resources to handle it other than the government. But then it deteriorates into a political debate and we end up with people not being able to care for themselves.
Departing from the topic slightly, I read about what is going on in Texas these days. I'm certain you too are keeping up with things. I learned something that never crossed my mind previously when I read about people receiving electric bills in the 5 digit range. These are legitimate billings for electricity, as it turns out. The people receiving said bills are all on a variable cost program with their supplier. Under normal conditions that variable cost often works out to being cheaper than the average costs you and I pay. The idea is the cost per kwh is less when the demand is low and higher when the demand is high. Since summer is only three months long, it's not too hard to beat the average the rest of us pay all year long. However, when a crisis strikes, and electricity is nowhere to be had, the cost per kwh skyrockets into realms never heard of before. Thus a residence getting a bill for $7,000 is kind of on the low end of that scale. Some folks are being told they owe in excess of $10,000 and they have been without power for several days. While this situation is horrible, it all makes sense. That is exactly what the customers agreed to when they signed into the program. Little did they suspect things would get as bad as they are today.