> Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snippage> > http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4571136/ > Medicare is a clearer > example of dishonesty and corruption at high levels > ...But the most shocking deception > took place in the run-up to the signing of the > Medicare prescription-drug benefit on Christmas Eve. > > ...The bill was > priced at the time at $400 billion over 10 years. > After the deed was done > (the specifics of which amounted to a huge giveaway > to the pharmaceutical > and health-care industries), it came out that the > real cost will be at > least $551.5 billion—a difference of $150-plus > billion that will translate > into trillions over time. Now we learn that the Bush > administration knew > the truth beforehand and squelched it. Rick Foster, > the chief actuary for > Medicare, says he was told he would be fired if he > passed along the higher estimates to Congress...
This is going to be a disgrace (as well as a health-care disaster) if it is not redressed. While drug companies ought to make a tidy profit, the public should strenuously object to paying for their aggressive and misleading advertising -- IIRC from prior discussions/cites, money budgeted to R&D was roughly 16%, while over 30% was spent on advertising. Public health would be better served by getting people off their gluteus maximae and cutting down on their massive over-eating. I can't give you a figure on how much of the drug budget goes to antihypertensives, heart medications, diabetes drugs, stroke therapy, and treatment of obesity-related cancers, but these conditions are among the top seven causes of death in the US (2000). http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/83/97784.htm?printing=true "Over the next decade, America's unhealthy lifestyle is expected to cause more premature deaths than smoking, a new report shows. "We believe diet, inactivity, and obesity -- that constellation - will be the leading cause of death if things don't change," says study researcher James S. Marks, MD, MPH, a CDC epidemiologist..."With sedentary lifestyle and obesity, we see higher rates of hypertension and diabetes, which are risk factors for stroke or heart attack," says Joseph Miller, MD, a preventive cardiologist with Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta..." Debbi Beads And Rattles Maru __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
