Lisa Benson by Lisa Benson

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  1. HUMPHRIES

    HUMPHRIESGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    Always a laugh with benson, the Austin Powers of cartoonest.

  2. senorbullwinkle

    senorbullwinkleGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    No, you cant keep your doctor, cause your scheduled to die tomorrow.

  3. cjr53

    cjr53 said, 3 months ago

    This is rather pointless actually.

  4. Corosive Frog

    Corosive Frog said, 3 months ago

    Somehow, I feel targeted.

    I didn’t show up at a meeting, I comment toons on the internet the WORLD WIDE web.

  5. LibrarianInTraining

    LibrarianInTraining said, 3 months ago

    Corosive, long time no see. I’ve missed you.

  6. WestTex13

    WestTex13 said, 3 months ago

    I believe this is in relations to the number of Canadians that come to the US to receive treatment that may be impacted by a change of the system. I know when we were researching the Canadian Health Care for a thesis a couple of years ago there was a large number of Canadians who came to America for treatment because certain technologies were not readily available because for profit healthcare produces new technologies quicker than universal healthcare. I personally don’t mind the Canadian input because it allow more views, but it is as varied as the American stance of healthcare so there is seldom a concensus of which is better..

  7. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    Tex: It is a varied opinion, but I think you could safely boil down the general Canadian opinion to this: Our system has problems, but people are afraid of going private. It’s like the opposite to the American opinion.

  8. rlsaxion

    rlsaxion said, 3 months ago

    Maybe we could trade people, the ones who want government health care can move to Canada, and the Canadians who want private can move here…..

  9. teaguemj

    teaguemj said, 3 months ago

    Good Question.

  10. senorbullwinkle

    senorbullwinkleGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    TEX, it’s just a JOKE, not a commentary on health care. Oh, I forgot you dont understand Jokes. Like data from star trek.

  11. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, 3 months ago

    Okay, AMERICANS go to Canada to buy drugs, sold, in Canada, by American “manufacturers”, actually manufactured off shore, at prices lower than they can get them in U.S. pharmacies, even through private health plans. The Canadian pharmacies still sell these drugs at a profit. Exactly what is wrong with this picture considering the Republicans forbade the U.S. government from negotiating drug prices down under Medicare?

  12. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    I don’t get the price difference either. But then again I don’t get why so much of the medicine in American pharmacies is behind the counter.

  13. GNWachs

    GNWachsGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    dtroutma/iamthelorax

    Assuming you really are making honest comments and not trying to be provocative here is the exact answer. (BTW, I am an MD and RPh and worked for years for BigPharma.)

    BigPharma company A spends $1B (literally) and develops a new FDA approved medication. The actual cost of putting the capsule together is $1/pill. But somehow they have to make back that $1B that they have laid out to get this far. So they charge $5/pill and sell enough to begin to repay that $1B expenditure. Now remember unlike music where there is a 75 year+ copyright, patents for medications only last for on average 7-10 years. They must earn all that $1B back by then or have a loss. After the patent runs out anyone can exactly copy the drug, for free, and make the profit.

    Now Canada, Italy et al say to the company we won’t pay the $5/pill but only $2/pill. The company would rather have a $1 profit rather than zero. so they sell the pills to Canada.

    Now you say if Canadians only have to pay $2 why should Americans pay $5? Well, yes, BigPharma could charge you $2 but that would end research. If you are willing for you and your children and grandchildren only have the drugs currently available the $2/pill is the way to go. No new drugs and remember we don’t cure all diseases now.

    The US is subsidizing the rest of the world. Canada et al are parasites. Now those of you who are advocating $2/pill in America what would you do if you were in charge? Seriously, no one has an answer.

  14. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    I’m not trying to be a troll, just stating that I don’t understand the price difference.

    I get your explanation that the price difference is due to governments negotiating the price and I’m sure you know what you’re talking about.

    I do think though, that insinuating BigPharma is just bending over to International parasites and forcing the American consumers to finance the discount is a bit simplistic.

    There are many examples out there where lowered prices lead to increased sales that compensated for the per unit price.

    The Canadian medicare system is squeezed to the last cent, I’m sure BigPharma has bean counters to crunch the numbers and negotiated the best deal possible for themselves.

    I don’t know the exact details, but if BigPharma blindly takes a new product to market assuming the whole world can pay $x and then get mad when they can’t, then BigPharma has bigger problems from within to solve.

    Besides, the 7-10 year window is not completely correct. Many copyrights get extended with just enough tweaking on the original product.

    It’s true that research is an expensive gamble, but please don’t call me a parasite and blame me for America’s problems.

  15. GNWachs
  16. ReasonsVentriloquist

    ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago

    GNWachs,

    We agree, but I would say that Big Pharma only drops the price BECAUSE they know they’ll get the money back by forcing Americans to pay higher prices.

    If they couldn’t, they wouldn’t and the Canadians wouldn’t be able to say “We’ll only pay $2.”

    Ironically, pharma has the same problem as the rest of us in that when they priced the drugs, they figured on their health care costs going up by the rate of inflation. Since HC rose by 5X the rate of inflation, pharma is now looking at not making that $1B by the expiration date (which is a different farce and one with two tails to it, one being the farce of short dating the expiration date to increase resells, the second being the way Pharma uses companies like Sepracor to alter the drug enough so that the patent is essentially extended.)

    There are no two ways about it, the USA subsidizes the world’s meds. Health care reform here would raise the cost of health care around the world.

    The prex ought to try to sell it that way “Pass Single Payer Health care, stick it to the French!”

  17. ReasonsVentriloquist

    ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago

    You know what else would be cool? Health care that is portable world wide. They’ve done thousands more Lazix surgeries in Canada than they have in the Northeast (forget flyover America, they’ve done millions more than those Gomers) wouldn’t it be great if you could fly from left overshoe Arkansas to Montreal to get the Lazix done? And it might still be cheaper, including the air fare and hotel!

    They say the heart hospitals in some of the Indonesian cities are phenomenal and the cost is a fraction of here.

    Talk about your “Free Market Forces!”

  18. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    Saw part of the video,and yes it sucks that bad here.I should know,that is the Charles LEmoyne hospital, I’ve been there and people call me al liar and a republican plant pretending to be Canadian when I tell them about it.

    Unless it was discussed in the last bit when I stopped watching,I don’t get what that has to do with price of medicine though.

  19. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    Sorry a out the multiple posts,trying to do this on my phone

  20. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, 3 months ago

    Wachs, I’m familiar with copyrights and patents, and the pharma argument. I take a sleep med that works very well for me. The company spent only a fraction in development for what they spent on advertising, because they knew how much they could make if they put it on TV. The TV ads are totally phony, they’ve cleaned them up a little, but their profits were huge, selling to folks who THINK they need a pill, but don’t in all probability. Fibromyalgia IS a real condition I’ve had for over 30 years. The TV ads that first came out didn’t even come close to describing the actual symptoms- but they were selling a new drug, one with horrendous side effects in many trials!

    And frankly, the development and approval process might add up to a dollar a pill, but the companies WILL charge a huge profit margin for it, largely to American customers who can take the hit. VA negotiates drug prices, and yes, their formulary is largely generic, but not totally. The ones you can’t get from VA are, at least in part, those the companies refuse to negotiate on, it isn’t that they can’t afford to.

    Oil and pharmaceuticals are both product lines that constitute a license to print money. (p.s. they are also linked in many cases.)

  21. believecommonsense

    believecommonsenseGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    back to the toon’s commentary, haven’t any of you had your employer change health plans and been forced to get a new primary care doc if she/he isn’t on their new insurer’s plan?

    That happens a lot; it’s happened to me twice in the past because my employer went with a new insurance plan

  22. iamthelorax

    iamthelorax said, 3 months ago

    Can’t say as I have, there are no Primary care physicians in Quebec, just emergency clinics.

    Why do the doctors go through the insurance directly? Can’t you just send a receipt?

  23. believecommonsense

    believecommonsenseGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    If your employer offers a traditional 80/20 health insurance plan, and you sign up for it, then you pay the physician/clinic/hospital directly and submit a reimbursement claim. My guess is not that many folks have that kind of a policy anymore.

    Employers tend to offer HMOs, where you have an assigned physician and are directed to specific facilities or specialists, paying a co-pay at time of service.

    I always choose the PPO model (preferred provider) which gives the patient more choice, but to receive the benefit of the contracted rate for services, you must see physicians on the insurer’s preferred provider list. So if your employer changes plans, the subscriber may have to change physicians or pay big time out of pocket for seeing a physician or using a facility not on the preferred provider panel.

  24. believecommonsense

    believecommonsenseGenius_badge said, 3 months ago

    one more personal example from United Healthcare coverage I once had ….

    I chose the PPO plan and had an outpatient procedure done at my local community hospital. The hospital WAS a preferred provider. Some pathology work was required to test for cancer from tissue removed/

    The procedure required a co-pay, of course. But I also received a large bill from the pathologist and the anesthesiologist. Turns out the insurance co. did NOT sign a contract with those two groups of doctors, only with the hospital itself. I was liable for the entire bill, minus something like $15 or so the insurer said it would pay. (I’m not exaggerating, it was a ridiculous payment for a pathologist and an anesthesiologist.)

    It took three months of phone calls, correspondence and a taped telephonic appeal interview before the insurance co. agreed to pay those two bills because obviously patients don’t determine where tissue goes for pathology and it’s ridiculous for the insurer to say a hospital/facility is a preferred provider and then not include the ancillary services.

    It cost me, thus the insurer, dozens of hours before resolution was reached. That’s not “efficient” private enterprise, is it?

  25. ynnek58

    ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

    but really, where will the Canadians go if the need something special? It’s a pretty cheap hop across the boarder now, but if they have to go to Switzerland it ain’t gonna be cheap.

  26. DrCanuck

    DrCanuck said, 3 months ago

    For something “special,” Canadians go to world-class Canadian hospitals. Are you assuming, in your lack of education and as a victim of insurance company propaganda, that somehow Canada is Third World?

  27. DrCanuck

    DrCanuck said, 3 months ago

    You sent me to a website that states Canadian health care is “free and first class” and this is your argument against me? You really can’t read, can you?

  28. DrCanuck

    DrCanuck said, 3 months ago

    You played ice hockey before the mandatory helmet rule, didn’t you?

  29. ReasonsVentriloquist

    ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago

    OK so you pick a supposed “Man Bites Dog” human interest story to issue a smack to the Canadian system?

    What kind of bleeding heart wuss are you?

    The guy has cancer, it stinks but, hey, “God’s got a plan.”

    No matter what somebody is going to think that his treatment is unfair.

    “Shoot yeah I want to live, but I gotta drive 4 hours to do so? That’s like so unfair, eh! The rest of you should pay another $35,000, eh.”

    Inneresting though. If we passed single payer and brought the costs down, and Canada shuffles it’s patients to Buffalo, should they pay the lower rate or the same rate they’re paying now?

    I’d rather see them pay the higher price so as to off set our system some more and drive our costs down some more!