Joe Ferguson forever

I took all comers. I would not have liked being forced to. FREEDOM! what is it with principle and you guys? I know, you don't have any. As Canada said, health care is a right. You have a bad gallbladder, we'll take it out. You need a new kidney or dialysis, no problem. You want plastic surgery or botox for your face? That's on you. And if Dr X wants a cash only biz that improves his lifestyle and income and people are willing to pay more for it, so be it.. you're turning socialist on us....Cuba is very nice this time of year.

yup. medicaid is the best insurance you can't buy. An insurance agent told me that when I recently signed up for medicare. Got a D plan, a prescription plan and Dental/eye. If I had medicaid secondary, I wouldn't be paying for those. And that's how it should be but someone is paying for your care. wanna guess who? Of course the did. Oz is almost as big a conman as donnie. RFK is nuts...

He could have. As Frank said, how is this going to be implemented? If it’s price fixing, I’m glad he didn’t.

but no one would be without care. a basic level would be provided. the folks who can afford it can see those that are perceived as the best. true, it could be marketing but patients notice a difference. Go to health grades and look up your doc. The public constantly rates us which is good but can be improved.. At any rate, many factors influence recruitment: quality of care and thus quality of colleagues, lifestyle, autonomy, pay etc..the small hospital i mentioned and I recruited several great docs to my practice. Ah, the good old days. People motivated solely by pay may choose a less desirable location that's willing to pay more. Different corporate systems have different reputations largely based on how they prioritize true quality.

agree. We need invest in some jaded influencers, cartoons of D pols with superman bodies and memes. Talking sense no longer works for us. Your graph on generics and overall cost is surprising and good news except for those that require drugs not available as generics

Here's the first medicare drug negotiations bill that passed. Check how the parties voted. https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicare-drug-price-negotiation-program-negotiated-prices-initial-price-applicability-year-2026 In August 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169) into law. The law makes improvements to Medicare by expanding benefits, lowering drug costs, and improving the sustainability of the Medicare program for generations to come. The law provides meaningful financial relief for millions of people with Medicare by improving access to affordable treatments and strengthening Medicare, both now and in the long run. For the first time, the law provides Medicare the ability to directly negotiate the prices of certain high expenditure, single source drugs without generic or biosimilar competition. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) selected ten drugs covered under Medicare Part D for the first cycle of negotiations for initial price applicability year 2026 and engaged in voluntary negotiations with the drug companies for the selected drugs. Below is the list of negotiated prices, which the statute refers to as Maximum Fair Prices (MFPs), for 10 drugs covered under Medicare Part D that will go into effect beginning January 1, 2026, based on negotiations and agreements reached between CMS and participating drug companies.

A man of the people. It appears he's more conservative than Francis but significantly more liberal than Benedict or John Paul II. Fine with me. I understand and agree with the Church' stance on abortion. I would never be involved in one. But they can stop endorsing candidates based solely on this. I'm hoping he will move us in that direction. Social justice, the value of all life (including migrants) is clearly a priority. I've seen somewhere that he also holds Francis' views on climate.

I don't believe so. I had a relative in England diagnosed with a rare condition which required a super specialist. She could see someone with specific expertise in that field in several months, see a more general specialist much sooner or see the super specialist as private pay. In the US, there are already many private pay concierge primary care docs. They usually don't deal with any insurance at all except for referrals, labs and X-rays. And they have a very small patient panel so you get more personalized care. And before you start complaining about bout a tiered system, it's always been tiered. Especially if you are on medicaid. Many docs refuse to accept it. Pharmaceuticals are much the same. You can get the one on the formulary at low cost or you can buy the newest weight loss drug for $500 per month for cash. And with the government negotiating for medicare, medicaid and the Va and having a closed formulary, prices will decrease greatly. It's what almost all of Europe does and one reason why their prices are so much lower. we don't need to reinvent the wheel. the blueprint is well established. hospitals the same.. you can go to a taj mahal at your own cost or an ordinary one covered by single payer.

There are very few real R’s left. I can think of only 2 in the senate and they’re both female. MAGA is now the party, the party is now maga. Disappointing the real R’s folded like cheap suits. 4 million, 800k. No, I suggest single payer with the option for patients to go private if they want to pay substantially more. The UK system does this.

no argument until "if not by trump". Do it legislatively. For example, allow government funded agencies (some at universities like Harvard) to develop and even produce drugs. Let the gov't hold the patents and change the patent laws so the pharmacy companies can't change the molecule's stereochemistry to get another 7 years for example. Many health care laws are currently skewed massively towards the health care biz. Less radical is the formulary option. Medicaid pays a small fraction of the street cost of drugs. But there are only a few drugs of each class on the formulary. the others are shut out of the market. For insurance companies, make them liable as I suggested. Regulate their price increases tied to their actual costs. Limit malpractice awards severely. But much more simple and more effective is single payor. My private practice was initially tied closely to a small independent hospital where the doctors actually ran things. It was an old but well maintained building. It ran efficiently and care was excellent. Then it sold out to a big conglomerate as did all the surrounding hospitals. Eventually, so did almost all the docs. And now we have a uber expensive taj mahal hospitals with $hitty care. They can't attract the best and the brightest cuz they treat their staff like minions. The CEO is making 5X what the highest earning neurosurgeon is making. So we agree that things need to change but our solutions are very different. the gov't negotiating on drugs for a formulary is still free market. Extending the ice cream analogy, it would be like the local school system negotiating prices with the ice cream stand for all the students. In exchange for an exclusive group of customers, they get lower prices. Negotiations are the key.

because it's true. It's a half assed attempt to appease people drowning under health care costs at the expense of private industry. Let's say you owned an ice cream stand and demand was so high you could charge $10 per cone. And trump told you that $5 was the most you could charge. In response you limited your ice cream to a cheap brand of vanilla only. Drug innovation will decrease. When wacka can't get his super expensive anti rejection drugs, there will be hell to pay. You maga's always frame things in false choices. It's not a choice between price controls and high prices. There are other ways to bring prices down. A formulary like the VA or medicaid use would allow pharma to negotiate prices with medicare which represents the vast majority of consumers of drugs.

which will bring the market to almost as high as it was when he took office. hooray!! I have a great advisor. Met with her last week. At 5% return, will have a nice sum to give our heirs. So what would you say if trump decided housing was too expensive and set a lower than market price for your house so that you lost, say 100k? He's a chameleon as are all populists. No principle. No philosophy. No guardrails. At times, he resemble Hitler and at others Mao. The common thread is authoritarianism.

you love it til trump starts to mimic chairman mao...then it's ok to go all socialist. you're in a cult. and you care nothing about principles.

you maga's love capitalism until you don't....pick a side. I choose capitalism. and single payer.

Well, there goes my pharma stocks....Thanks donnie the commie. Dems supported negotiating lower prices through Medicare's bargaining power. R's voted it down every time. If the entire medicare population obtained lower prices, it would spill over to the private sector as it does for other health care costs. Medicare is the bellweather. PBM's could be reigned in. Or even better, wee could go single payer. Get rid of all the profit and waste in the private system. Have a national formulary and national algorithms for approving and reimbursing care. Get rid of CEO's making multi millions from your illnesses. Get rid of profit driven bean counters telling doctors how to practice. Stop driving people into bankruptcy because they develop cancer. At a minimum, make PBM's and insurance co's liable for bad outcomes when they refuse to cover care. Thet're currently protected from malpractice suits. Instead he price controls and tanks my stocks. f him.

i can't read German but that's one stern looking guy. I bet he's great at parties. If Pope Benedict was the Rottweiler, this guy is likely a pitbull

Yes, because wars in Europe and the Middle East aren't adult problems....

Perhaps this is why he hasn't ended either of the wars he promised to... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-has-skipped-out-on-all-but-12-of-his-daily-intelligence-briefings/ar-AA1EvC6C

Laura loomer vs Pope Leo https://archive.is/LM7zQ Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who holds significant sway with Mr. Trump, wrote Thursday on social media that Leo’s style would be similar to that of his predecessor, Pope Francis, whom she described as “anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist.” “Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to,” she wrote. “Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.” And on Friday, guests on Steve Bannon’s popular right-wing “War Room” podcast piled on, casting Leo as a progressive figure and a continuation of Francis, an outspoken voice for migrants who was often at odds with Mr. Trump. Mr. Bannon, one of the president’s top allies, told the BBC that the selection was “kind of jaw-dropping,” adding that there was “definitely going to be friction” between the new pope and Mr. Trump.

more trump and miller crapping on the Constitution and rights. These rights go back to the Magna Carta. F'in barbarians with no respect for American history or the Constitution. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/09/trump-deportation-habeas-corpus-miller.html “No man shall be arrested or imprisoned...except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land,” a provision in the Magna Carta, signed by King John in the early 13th Century, says. The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, section 9, says, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

no one is confusing trump's politics with Bernie's...

Yesswir, I could talk eunuchs all day. But I'm just not interested. Nope, not a biblical scholar. More of a comparative religion type guy, meaning I took I course in it. We did some adult education bible courses through our church. It didn't really light my fire but the other people were/are nice. My wife always made a dessert. now indulgences, there's an issue I could sink my teeth into

cool. tell me what it says about them. I mean the purpose was too stop guards from banging the king's concubines, right. They were usually slaves. Lot's of slaves mentioned in the bible, so maybe. So did someone speak out agains eunuchism? I think nowadays everyone thinks being a eunuch is undesirable. I guess there's probably a few people on the periphery who might find it appealing some how. As long as they don't bother me.....

Not following. They had eunuchs back then. I don't believe they're mentioned in the bible. I think he'd be against both. But I'm confident he wouldn't tell the Romans how to write their laws.

I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. Why would anybody? It's like trusting trump. In more good news, it appears Pope Leo is a real Republican https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14693185/new-pope-robert-prevost-voting-history-conservative-liberal.html