Did you ever have a day when everything went perfectly? Sun on your face, wind at your back, a lift in your step. Everything you did turned to gold. Everyone you met smiled and nodded. The birds were singing and the weather was great? A day when you felt like God had his hand on your shoulder. Hell......me either.
@opipeman Allow me to disagree. I think if you actually contemplated that question you would find numerous days where there went perfectly in your life. I tend to think of those as days with no regrets and with positive outcomes. Days like when I got married, when our children were born, when I retired from the Coast Guard, and a number of other instances.
@motie2 I understand what you are saying. Out our ages, living each day is sometimes a challenge.
@PappyJoe; Thank you for posting that. My old fire chief was a Omaha Beach and won a Bronze Star. He was never physically wounded, but would never talk about the the war. I worry that the next generations will forget what the Greatest Generation did for us all.
According to a Lakota legend, about 2,000 years ago, when times were hard and food was scarce, a White Buffalo Calf Woman presented the Lakota tribe with a bowl pipe and taught the tribe how to pray.
Now I want to ring up Turkey and commission a White Bison Meerschaum. I could probably get it blessed by a Lakota Holy Man, if they do that sort of thing?
@motie2 I don't know where that video came from but I do want to know what happened to Alexis. Was she a plant just for the lesson? Did she ever come back?
Got a summary from my Aetna Insurance and noticed that one of the drugs my wife takes costs over $1400.00. And thankfully the insurance pays almost $1200.00, leaving us with a bill of just over $200.00 a month for her blood thinners. She takes the pills twice a day. What is a person with no health insurance suppose to do? How has this been allowed to happen? I get calls at least three times a week from my CVS drug store for prescription that need to be pick-up for my wife and I. Even with insurance picking up a portion of the cost we still have over $500.00 a month in prescription costs. It's getting harder and harder to survive each month. Thank God I lost my mind a few years ago and stocked up on enough pipe tobacco to last me the remainder of my life - otherwise I'd have to give up my pipe smoking hobby.
@ghostsofpompeii; I stock piled tobac a couple of years ago when it looked like the commie bureaucrats where going to tax it out of reach or ban it completely. As my bride and I have aged it seems like one or both of us has a medical appointment of some kind every week. I can't tell you how many pills we take to keep us afloat. Some are high priced and/or not covered by our health insurance. I don't know the answer, but I don't want the commie bureaucrats taking over health care. It is a complicated problem and well beyond my level of knowledge/ expertise.
The US government is doing this all on purpose. They don't even hide it anymore. They will make everything unaffordable and this is just the beginning. The government never had your best interest...ever.
COVID medications are the new class divide in America
HEALTH CARE
What once was free is stupid expensive again. So is the choice we must make.
Kyle Whitmire - kwhitmire@al.com
COVID is still with us, public health officials say, but last weekend, the second line on the test strip thingy told me COVID now was with me more than with others.
Just great, I thought. But whatever. I’ve been through this before.
When my wife told me I should take a test, I protested that it really, probably was just a cold. After all, I had just had some altogether different crud in my chest the week before, and she was certain that was COVID, too, until the test said it wasn’t.
But nope. Not this time. It was my turn — again.
I’m not looking for sympathy, and I don’t need any. If you can’t tell, I’m feeling much better already.
What I am looking for is an answer — for where my money went.
As soon as I learned I got the bug, I went to my neighborhood doc-in-a-box, where I got my prescriptions and played the first round of my least favorite game: How much is this going to cost?
Anyone who participates in the American healthcare system knows how this game works. There’s a person behind a counter who is going to give me a number, and that number could be anything.
It could be $5 or it could be $5,000.
I have no idea how this number is calculated or who generates it. I only know that I have a choice: pay up or go home. Sometimes, I get to play this game after I’ve received the services, as the American Healthcare Scam is the one market where you find out how much things cost after you’ve bought them. But this time, I learned beforehand.
IT’S A DEAL
“Your copay is $20,” she told me.
One time in college, I took $20 into a New Orleans casino and walked out rich enough to finance the rest of a weekend getaway for me and my friends. This was nothing compared to the elation I felt when told I only owed the Great American Healthcare Scam one small portrait of Andrew Jackson.
“Deal!” I said.
A nurse confirmed that, four years after the start of the pandemic, I know how to shove a Q-tip up my nose, then another nurse practitioner put in a script for my meds — a box of Paxlovid and some non-codeine (sigh) cough syrup — and I was on my way.
So far, this was COVID as I experienced it the first time: An inconvenient test, a few days of medication, a day or two in bed with my sympathetic wife bringing me soup. Not that bad.
HOW MUCH NOW?
But a couple of hours later, at my pharmacy’s drive-thru, I was in for a surprise.
“That’s four twenty-three…”
$4.23! With a streak like this, I might try my luck in New Orleans again …
“... oh-eight,” he said.
Wait, what?
The guy on the other side of the plexiglass informed me I had another choice to make: I could pay $423.08 and get my meds, or I could try my luck with the OTC stuff behind the mirror above my bathroom sink.
“Are you willing to pay that?” the man behind the glass asked.
This isn’t the way it worked last time when — I learned from some quick Googling on my phone — the federal government had covered the cost of the drug, that little taste we all got of universal health care.
Since late last year, however, Americans have been at the mercy of the markets, where Pfizer has set a much higher sticker price than my insurance had bargained them down from. The MSRP for Paxlovid is $1,390.
I had a decision to make and seconds to make it.
In America, we have certain class distinctions. Some people drive expensive cars. Others send their kids to private schools. I have friends who have paid $400 for rugged ice coolers that are not only guaranteed to keep their beer cold all weekend but also come with bumper stickers to advertise to strangers that they have $400 coolers in the back of their trucks.
I do not have such a cooler, but I suddenly realized I had a similar choice — to which class did I belong? Was I with those who play it safe and expensive by taking the Paxlovid? Or those who suffer a little longer and roll the dice with COVID?
I am fortunate enough that I could afford to pay. When the rest of my family gets it, I’ll be well again, I figured. Also, I’m kind of a baby about these things.
“You paid how much?” my wife asked. Her tone suggested my two days of room service might not be as friendly or efficient this time around.
But it’s kind of a deal, I tried to explain. It could have been much worse. Pfizer is asking $1,390 …
“It’s not worth it,” she said.
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR HEALTH
When my wife got her second line on the test strip thingy a few days later, she stuck to her conclusion, and now it’s my turn to play bedside assistant.
I’m still trying to reckon whether it was worth the price.
The America Healthcare Scam is loath to tell anyone what a thing will or won’t do. If you look up online what Paxlovid offers, you’ll find a lot of vague suggestions of benefits and rough odds of getting the kind of COVID that won’t go away.
What I can say from my experience, is this: I’ve had COVID twice. I used Paxlovid both times. I recovered within a day both times.
My stubborn A/B test of a wife is getting better, too, but a lot more slowly this time without it.
A sample size of two isn’t science, but it’s typical of what many Americans have to go on when asked to play this stupid game.
Pfizer’s website claims to offer some sort of rebate for those who have to pay out of pocket, but it’s all very vague, with no guarantees, and I’m still trying to figure out how it works.
COVID is still with us, even if the American healthcare system isn’t with us anymore.
It seemed to work a lot better a year ago. But the pandemic is over, the temporary suspension of the rules has ended, COVID is here to stay, and we must play the game again when we go to the doctor.
It’s a stupid game that will cost some folks money, and others their health
Comments
Allow me to disagree. I think if you actually contemplated that question you would find numerous days where there went perfectly in your life.
I tend to think of those as days with no regrets and with positive outcomes. Days like when I got married, when our children were born, when I retired from the Coast Guard, and a number of other instances.
@motie2
I understand what you are saying. Out our ages, living each day is sometimes a challenge.
It is definitely better than the alternative.
Truth
https://youtu.be/3p3LNgL1H5k?si=0pr-JHwt-GklvmIL
Thank you for posting that. My old fire chief was a Omaha Beach and won a Bronze Star. He was never physically wounded, but would never talk about the the war. I worry that the next generations will forget what the Greatest Generation did for us all.
Beautiful photo. Happy Father's Day to you and all our TPL Brothers. Being a father is an honor, and being a grandfather is a reward.
Thank you. Very kind of you.
And the same to you and all our TPL fathers.
According to a Lakota legend, about 2,000 years ago, when times were hard and food was scarce, a White Buffalo Calf Woman presented the Lakota tribe with a bowl pipe and taught the tribe how to pray.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/birth-rare-white-bison-calf-yellowstone-fulfills-native/
Sounds periferally related to the biblical “Red Heifer.”
"Red Heifer"
My wife had a friend that everyone used to call that.
I don't think it was for "biblical" reasons.
I could probably get it blessed by a Lakota Holy Man, if they do that sort of thing?
https://paykocpipes.com/buffalo-themed-meerschaum-tobacco-pipes
I don't know where that video came from but I do want to know what happened to Alexis.
Was she a plant just for the lesson?
Did she ever come back?
I like the message the video sends.
I have no answers, except to say that I also was drawn to the message.
🙋
I stock piled tobac a couple of years ago when it looked like the commie bureaucrats where going to tax it out of reach or ban it completely. As my bride and I have aged it seems like one or both of us has a medical appointment of some kind every week. I can't tell you how many pills we take to keep us afloat. Some are high priced and/or not covered by our health insurance. I don't know the answer, but I don't want the commie bureaucrats taking over health care. It is a complicated problem and well beyond my level of knowledge/ expertise.
Truth!
COVID is still with us, public health officials say, but last weekend, the second line on the test strip thingy told me COVID now was with me more than with others.
Just great, I thought. But whatever. I’ve been through this before.
When my wife told me I should take a test, I protested that it really, probably was just a cold. After all, I had just had some altogether different crud in my chest the week before, and she was certain that was COVID, too, until the test said it wasn’t.
But nope. Not this time. It was my turn — again.
I’m not looking for sympathy, and I don’t need any. If you can’t tell, I’m feeling much better already.
What I am looking for is an answer — for where my money went.
As soon as I learned I got the bug, I went to my neighborhood doc-in-a-box, where I got my prescriptions and played the first round of my least favorite game: How much is this going to cost?
Anyone who participates in the American healthcare system knows how this game works. There’s a person behind a counter who is going to give me a number, and that number could be anything.
It could be $5 or it could be $5,000.
I have no idea how this number is calculated or who generates it. I only know that I have a choice: pay up or go home. Sometimes, I get to play this game after I’ve received the services, as the American Healthcare Scam is the one market where you find out how much things cost after you’ve bought them. But this time, I learned beforehand.
IT’S A DEAL
“Your copay is $20,” she told me.
One time in college, I took $20 into a New Orleans casino and walked out rich enough to finance the rest of a weekend getaway for me and my friends. This was nothing compared to the elation I felt when told I only owed the Great American Healthcare Scam one small portrait of Andrew Jackson.
“Deal!” I said.
A nurse confirmed that, four years after the start of the pandemic, I know how to shove a Q-tip up my nose, then another nurse practitioner put in a script for my meds — a box of Paxlovid and some non-codeine (sigh) cough syrup — and I was on my way.
So far, this was COVID as I experienced it the first time: An inconvenient test, a few days of medication, a day or two in bed with my sympathetic wife bringing me soup. Not that bad.
HOW MUCH NOW?
But a couple of hours later, at my pharmacy’s drive-thru, I was in for a surprise.
“That’s four twenty-three…”
$4.23! With a streak like this, I might try my luck in New Orleans again …
“... oh-eight,” he said.
Wait, what?
The guy on the other side of the plexiglass informed me I had another choice to make: I could pay $423.08 and get my meds, or I could try my luck with the OTC stuff behind the mirror above my bathroom sink.
“Are you willing to pay that?” the man behind the glass asked.
This isn’t the way it worked last time when — I learned from some quick Googling on my phone — the federal government had covered the cost of the drug, that little taste we all got of universal health care.
Since late last year, however, Americans have been at the mercy of the markets, where Pfizer has set a much higher sticker price than my insurance had bargained them down from. The MSRP for Paxlovid is $1,390.
I had a decision to make and seconds to make it.
In America, we have certain class distinctions. Some people drive expensive cars. Others send their kids to private schools. I have friends who have paid $400 for rugged ice coolers that are not only guaranteed to keep their beer cold all weekend but also come with bumper stickers to advertise to strangers that they have $400 coolers in the back of their trucks.
I do not have such a cooler, but I suddenly realized I had a similar choice — to which class did I belong? Was I with those who play it safe and expensive by taking the Paxlovid? Or those who suffer a little longer and roll the dice with COVID?
I am fortunate enough that I could afford to pay. When the rest of my family gets it, I’ll be well again, I figured. Also, I’m kind of a baby about these things.
“You paid how much?” my wife asked. Her tone suggested my two days of room service might not be as friendly or efficient this time around.
But it’s kind of a deal, I tried to explain. It could have been much worse. Pfizer is asking $1,390 …
“It’s not worth it,” she said.
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR HEALTH
When my wife got her second line on the test strip thingy a few days later, she stuck to her conclusion, and now it’s my turn to play bedside assistant.
I’m still trying to reckon whether it was worth the price.
The America Healthcare Scam is loath to tell anyone what a thing will or won’t do. If you look up online what Paxlovid offers, you’ll find a lot of vague suggestions of benefits and rough odds of getting the kind of COVID that won’t go away.
What I can say from my experience, is this: I’ve had COVID twice. I used Paxlovid both times. I recovered within a day both times.
My stubborn A/B test of a wife is getting better, too, but a lot more slowly this time without it.
A sample size of two isn’t science, but it’s typical of what many Americans have to go on when asked to play this stupid game.
Pfizer’s website claims to offer some sort of rebate for those who have to pay out of pocket, but it’s all very vague, with no guarantees, and I’m still trying to figure out how it works.
COVID is still with us, even if the American healthcare system isn’t with us anymore.
It seemed to work a lot better a year ago. But the pandemic is over, the temporary suspension of the rules has ended, COVID is here to stay, and we must play the game again when we go to the doctor.
It’s a stupid game that will cost some folks money, and others their health