Health care has changed

[Gerry Clinchy]

Yardley

Yes. $423.2 billion has actually been included as an earmark for ACORN in both the House and Senate bills to provide outreach to enroll illegal aliens in the program. This may be seen on page 622 of the electronic version of HR 3200 on Thomas, the legislative web site at the Library of Congress (http://thomas,loc.gov).

LOL! Have they considered that once ACORN finds them, we should just send them home rather than give them free health care?

Or why not just spend the $432 billion with the INS?

[Gerry Clinchy]

Julie raises a major point about medications, as demonstrated in her example.

Data like that on meds should be fairly easy to computerize. Each doctor could be then given access to a website for determining the least costly medication for the patient.

Nobody has mentioned the role in pharmacists in the whole scheme. There's no question that the pharmacy will make more $ on the $300-drug than the $4-drug.

Julie's post also relates to the fact that cost control becomes a responsibility for all of us. Large deductibles on health care policies do foster more cost consciousness on the part of the patient.

A few months back I needed an antibiotic for one of my dogs. First off, I took the scrip from my vet to go to a local pharmacy, which is almost always a cheaper alternative to letting the vet fill the scrip. Ironically, I found that taking a smaller size pill (rather than a larger one) of the identical med cut the cost by 1/2 ($144 as opposed to over $300). It simply meant that I would give the dog 2 pills each time, rather than 1 pill. Evidently, humans who use this med prefer to take fewer, larger pills?

How many of us ever ask the cost? In the case above, one does not even have to sacrifice a lesser medication ... simply bear with the minor inconvenience of using more pills of a different size.

Each and every one of us has a responsibility to help control costs.

[dnf777]

Julie raises a major point about medications, as demonstrated in her example.

Data like that on meds should be fairly easy to computerize. Each doctor could be then given access to a website for determining the least costly medication for the patient.

Nobody has mentioned the role in pharmacists in the whole scheme. There's no question that the pharmacy will make more $ on the $300-drug than the $4-drug.

Julie's post also relates to the fact that cost control becomes a responsibility for all of us. Large deductibles on health care policies do foster more cost consciousness on the part of the patient.

A few months back I needed an antibiotic for one of my dogs. First off, I took the scrip from my vet to go to a local pharmacy, which is almost always a cheaper alternative to letting the vet fill the scrip. Ironically, I found that taking a smaller size pill (rather than a larger one) of the identical med cut the cost by 1/2 ($144 as opposed to over $300). It simply meant that I would give the dog 2 pills each time, rather than 1 pill. Evidently, humans who use this med prefer to take fewer, larger pills?

How many of us ever ask the cost? In the case above, one does not even have to sacrifice a lesser medication ... simply bear with the minor inconvenience of using more pills of a different size.

Each and every one of us has a responsibility to help control costs.

This opens a whole silo of worms. What drug a doc prescribes, and what the patient actually recieves is dictated by hospital-corporate contracts, purchasing agreements, and "equivalency exchange" protocols. What is more expensive for the patient, is often much cheaper for the hospital/insurance company.