DL Open Thread: Thursday, August 15, 2024
State Auditor Sets Up Opioid Slush Fund Tracker. Great work that would be absolutely unnecessary if BHL had not used it as her personal slush fund to benefit her political allies. It goes w/o saying that BHL and her ‘staff’ are the last people who should be auditing this. We can now add over $90K gifted to an agency run by Anne Farley, one of the only staffers remaining on Bethany’s team. Oh, and the person who is charged with overseeing this program, Susan Holloway? She’s the V-P of Anne’s organization. The casual corruption of the Delaware Way, with names of the Usual Suspects attached. Utterly sickening.
A Big Effin’ Deal On The Pharmaceutical Front:
The Biden administration on Thursday announced the results of landmark price negotiations between Medicare and the pharmaceutical companies over the prices of 10 costly or common medications taken by millions of older Americans.
Had the new prices been in effect last year, Medicare would have saved $6 billion, administration officials said.
The prices of the drugs, which include widely used blood thinners and arthritis medications, will take effect in 2026. They represent the first time that the federal government has directly negotiated with drugmakers on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries, and will reshape the federal government’s role in a program that covers tens of millions of older and disabled Americans.
“It’s a relief for the millions of seniors that take these drugs to treat everything from heart failure, blood clots, diabetes, arthritis, Crohn’s disease and more,” President Biden said in a statement. “And it’s a relief for American taxpayers.”
If you’re of a certain age (mine) and watch TV that is age-appropriate, you’re bombarded with commercials from the drug manufacturers who make these drugs. If a byproduct of this agreement is that we’ll never have to suffer through another Jardiance jingle, I’ll be overjoyed. Good Democratic government.
One More Reason The NYTimes Sucks. Check Out This Headline: “Harris Set To Lay Out An Economic Message Light On Detail”. Wonder where the equivalent Trump dismissive headline is. For context, here’s the Guardian headline on the same upcoming speech: “Kamala Harris economic plan to focus on groceries, housing and healthcare”.
‘The Postmenopausal Female’. They should embrace their inner grandma, according to J. D. Vance.
JD Vance agreed with the notion that raising grandchildren was “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female,” an unearthed 2020 podcast shows.
Vance also seemed to concur when the host suggested that having grandparents help raise children was a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.”
It’s the latest in comments from the Republican nominee for vice presdident about women and “traditional” roles that have drawn ire. Vance has faced intense criticism in recent weeks for previous sexist comments, including his remarks about “cat ladies.”
“Plastics”. Trying to persuade the Feds to label plastic bags ‘recyclable’:
They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild, their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate, shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with reusable bags.
But the plastics industry is working to make the public feel OK about using them again.
Companies whose futures depend on plastic production, including oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on bags and other plastic items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.
They argue that “recyclable” should apply to anything that’s capable of being recycled. And they point to newer technologies that have been able to remake plastic bags into new products.
I spent months investigating one of those technologies, a form of chemical recycling called pyrolysis, only to find that it is largely a mirage. It’s inefficient, dirty and so limited in capacity that no one expects it to process meaningful amounts of plastic waste any time soon.
That shouldn’t matter, say proponents of the industry’s argument. If it’s physically capable of being recycled — even in extremely limited scenarios — it should be labeled “recyclable.”
What do you want to talk about?
I suppose these negotiated lower drug costs will help folks on Medicare, but I’m not sure how.
Case in point: the NYT article says max cost for a one-month supply of Eliquis will be $231. Picked up a 3-month supply at Walgreen’s yesterday for $383, through a Medicare Part D plan. So the savings aren’t obvious.
My suspicion: if consumers are going to be paying less out of pocket for their meds, the operators of Rx drug plans are going to impose substantial bumps in their monthly premiums in 2026.
Maybe someone with a pharmacist in the family could explain to me.
Ya talkin’ to me?
I’ll ask her–when she wakes up.
You could always move to a country that places its citizens above its corporations:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134380/eliquis-list-price-by-country-per-dose/
Thanks for the list, but Kazakhstan is out of the question, no matter how cheap the meds.
I think it was included to show that even downtrodden Second World countries are better than the US, though I imagine that price looks exorbitant to Kazakhs considering the average annual salary there is less than $8,000/year.
The answer I got is that, when people find themselves in the Medicare donut hole, meaning they have to pay out-of-pocket for their medications, the price of these medications are often prohibitive. That’s why the $35 insulin is so important.
Like insulin, these medications are often essential. The prices on some of these have been obscene. After all, there’s a reason why Big Pharma spends so much on those TV ads.
By negotiating these price limits for people on Medicare, Biden has assured that people who really need these medications will no longer pay obscene prices and that, in fact, the medications will be affordable.
Like I said, a big effin’ deal.
Ask Kathy McG.
Guess the Auditor must be banking on a different Governor, or it’s gonna get ugly. Eye opening and well timed with the campaign reports…
Meanwhile a new PAC poll suggests the tides turning on BHL post report: https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20240814075341/cndw-poll-majority-of-delaware-democrats-believe-bethany-hall-long-should-drop-out-of-gubernatorial-race-amid-ethics-scandals
The poll is from Slingshot Strategies, hired as part of Phil Shawe’s revenge campaign against Chancery Court. As if it was anybody’s fault but his own that he didn’t do his homework about how corporations in Delaware are treated in Chancery Court.
The firm is poorly ranked by 538, and I can’t tell from the link whether it was registered voters or likely voters who were polled. They’re also taking credit for a, what, four-point drop in her support? That’s within the margin of error.
Considering it was a poll commissioned by Shawe, even if one were to take it at face value, which I wouldn’t, it shows Matt Meyer at 27%.
Not necessarily something I’d brag about.
The report seemed designed to brag about their effect on the race more than anything else, and as I noted, that effect has been negligible. But hey, as BHL has shown, bragging about your shortcomings and pretending they’re points in your favor is all the rage these days.
Kind of interesting what politicians like her have learned from Trump. And are willing to emulate.
Say what you will as you will, I hope to live to see America negotiate the price of all drugs for all Americans, just as the rest of the advanced nation have done for many, many years. It’s why drugs cost half of what we pay in Canada and Mexico, it’s why Americans flock over the borders to buy drugs. I realize Big Pharma has a death grip on many politicians of both parties, Delaware included. But I also know an aging America has had enough of this greedy game, and will support efforts to end it.
Trump asking for delay in sentencing in NY case until after election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/15/trump-hush-money-conviction-sentencing/?utm_medium=email&wpisrc=nl-nationalpopup&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=wp_the_trump_trials
For the good of the country and in the interest of national security, Merchan should schedule the sentencing for Nov. 6 and lock him up until Jan. 21.