OT. Are our Veterans getting short changed on their medicines?

Yvsa

Yvsa

Joined
May 18, 1999
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I didn't want to hijack Thomas's tribute to the veterans thread so thought I would make a new thread.

Here in Tulsa there is a company called RxDepot that is a go between between the people needing cheap prescriptions and Canada so people can get the cheaper, much cheaper Canadian meds.
RxDepot is/was operating in several states and a Federal Judge shut them down because it is against the law.
(We weren't using them although we were thinking about it so as to cut our script cost's.)

The -Problem-?

The -problem- is that the US Government buys drugs from Canada, and perhaps other countries, (I understand and have read, nothing I have researched) to give to our veterans that have to deal with the VA if they are to have -any- medical care.
If these drugs aren't safe, are underpowered, are impure, and have other deviations from the USA Pharmaceuticals then how come the US Government is using drugs from out of country for our vets?!?!?!?
And that's something we should all be/get very angry over!!!! The VA care almost totally sucks for most vets anyway from what I have heard and seen!!!!
It's just as bad, probably worse, than the ndn health care almost everyone thinks is so great.:barf:

Let's vote all the bastards out this next election that isn't for better priceing on medications and that take campaign contributions from the pharaceutical companies!!!!
Remember, Con-gress is the opposite of Pro-gress!!!!:rolleyes: :(
 
The fact that the gov't is trying to cut off access to cheap medicine for folks would be a national outrage if even half the people bothered to look into it.

From what I have read most of the drugs imported from Canada are ones produced HERE. It is just the greed of the pharmaceutical companies and their undo political influence that is cutting them off.

Isn't it interesting that we can import shoddy stuff from other countries and that is "free trade" but when somebody steps on the big boys pocketbooks it is a difft. story.

Lack of affordable medicine probably kills more people than lack of oil, so why are we ignoring the first and going to war over and over for the second? We talk about right to life and the ten commandments and then ignore all the other issues that impact people. It just doesn't make sense to me. (rant over)
 
Here here. I have a marine friend whose feet were really messed up while on duty, he could not even walk. He has to foght with the VA just to get the meds, and of couurse they will not spring for surgery on the feet, which would fixt the prob and they couuld stop keeping him in a haze of painkillers. He eventually stopped taking them so he could hold a job, and lives in agonizing pain all the time.

There are some other issues that have been bugging me about the way our gov't has (mis)managed the military folks, but they are many and space is small. Short list from some of my mil buddies:

1. Using GIs as guinea pigs for cetain untested drugs, growth hormones, and dubious "vaccines."
2. Making the Marines have to pay for their rations (MREs) used in the field, while doing the Govt's work, and not payinng them their combat/hazard pay (or any pay, for that matter) until they pay for the MREs.
3. Cheating an army tank driver out of his combat pay and purple heart by saying that Ops leading up to Operation Desert Shield don't count as war (His freakin tank was trashed by a land mine! He's lucky to be alive!). Oh, then they screw him outta his GI bill stuff.

I think these issues would be nil if it was the Congressmens/presiddents/senates/house of reps kids over there, or the kids that come from Upper class and upper middle class. Historically, it was the Rich and powerful who personally had the right to fight, with the poorer folks concentrating on wartime production and agriculture. This was the case up until about 500 years ago, when someone must've said "Hey, let's send the kids of the middle and lower classes to fight instead! We'll get richer, and eliminate the opposition."

Another scary thought--Since its tough for kids coming out of Hi school college or vocational schools to find jobs due to the down economy, the gov't has been recruiting heavily for the military. Folks are more likely to take a job in the military if there are few alternatives...just smells of as setup or self fulfilling prophecy.

Much respect to the people in our armed forces. I just get sick when I see the "Support out troops" signs that the local gov't throws up in folks yards, see toe poopulace supporting the troops morally and materially, and then the gov't turns around and hypocritically does not suppport them?!?!? WTF!! The military and Gov't has become just another greedy corporation??? I think 87Bil would pay for some freakin MREs and meds/treatments. We OWE it to them.

/Rant off/

Keith
 
because I've moved from Conservative to damn hear radical! This country wasn't founded by folks willing to stand in line, that's while they left and came here! This country was founded by radicals, deists, anarchists, free thinkers, folks who challenged things every step of the way and were willing to make a lotta noise. And they made sure the government was designed so that it was not an entity unto itself, but that the people held the reins.

The PC movement among others has desensitized us and made us feeble. Churches tell folks they're sheep, Buffet style overeating makes us into plump, docile cattle being fattened up for slaughter, and any freethinking or stepping outta bounds brands you as a terrorist or as unpatriotic. (Hmm..isn't that how the Nazis gained power in Germany?) Hey, and just in case you can't /won't vote, the loving and always honest and incorruptble "Electoral College" is there to uh, fix the ballots. Are we so naive and complacent to think that election rigging only takes place in "other" countries? Puh-leeeze! Anybody know anyone who gets to serve on the "Electoral college?" I'm sure the rich agenda-setters and gatekeepers know.

Guess I wasn't quite done.
 
Drugs from Canada shouldn't be any different than those sold in the US. I assume hollowdweller is right, saying that many drugs are produced here, then shipped to Canada. Regardless, drug X used to treat X should be the same substance, regardless of where it's made.

I *think* the FDA's argument is that there's no guarantee that you're getting the right stuff. There could be counterfeiters, expired or rejected product, etc. etc. etc. I don't know if any of this has actually happened, or if it's just hand-wringing. If Canadian drugs continue to be so lucrative, I'd imagine the business might get a little shady.

My opinion on Canadian drugs for the VA - everyone's probably getting the right stuff, and no one is getting hurt.

On the other hand, it's an incredible bit of hypocrisy that one branch of the US government is buying drugs from Canada, while another is trying to shut it down. The truth is that the American pharmaceutical market is subsidizing drugs for the rest of the world. It's expensive to find and develop a drug. In the basically unregulated American market, drug companies can recoup that cost (and make considerable profits). Part of it is also our reliance on and willingness to take drugs. "If I take miracle pill X, I will be better than ever." Once a drug has been developed for the American market, passed clinical trials, etc. etc., the company can start sending it other places (like Canada) where they won't make as much money, but can add to their profits. This is one of the reasons many African health problems - diseases due to parasites and poor sanitation, among other things - aren't really being addressed. Drug companies can't make their money back, because African nations can't pay for whatever miracle drug they come up with. An rich countries, like the US, don't care about malaria or river blindness because they just don't happen.
 
I agree with much of what Ferrous posted. Both times.

And the Electoral College is made up of party yes-men (and women) who can be trusted not to exercise indepedent thought. That way, they vote for who they're told to vote for.
 
Oooh, don't get me started. the whole drug thing inckuding the "war on drugs" has me right pissed. We must be losing the war, because about half the ads I see on TV are for some purple pill with tremendous nasty side effects, or some new happy pill, or fat reducing med, or some methadone-like replacement drug for Nicotine (Which im sure is sold quite glefully-sell you an addiction like cigarettes or fast food, then happily sell the 'cure').

Not to mention, illicit drugs like opiates and uppers/downers are routinely bought and used in "controlled" environments in the med profession. If you can get anesthesia, you got opiates (synthetic or otherwise). Cocaine was and is still used for local anesthesia, and the active ingredient in Cannabis is used for glaucoma meds.

So are we at war with drugs, or okay with them? Which is it? I sure with the gov't could make up my minde fer me;)

Keith
 
RxDepot is being shut down, but several state and local governments buy drugs from Canada. How can it be legal for them and not for us? This is the first step toward one law for the Gov't, and one law for the people.
I went from a leftist youth to a conservative adult to now, a libertarian adult... I don't expect any good from the Democrats or Republicans anymore. They are only fighting for one thing- re-election, pork barrel projects, and special deals for their special interests.
 
Maybe that's why I never get better eating the VA meds.

BA, you're right. It's time for a third party movement.
 
Scary dayz.
I did a little research on the History of the electoral college (do a search on you fave engine, and start readin'). There have been occasions when the popular vote (you and me)decided one president was the guy, only to have the Electoral College sweep in to muck it up. Case in point:
------------------------------------------------
Critics [of the electoral college] point to the dispute caused by the election of 1876 and also to the elections of 1888 and 2000. In the 1888 election, Grover Cleveland, the defeated candidate, polled 5,540,050 popular votes to 5,444,337 for Benjamin Harrison; however, Cleveland received only 168 electoral votes to Harrison's 233. In the highly disputed 2000 election, Al Gore, the losing candidate, won 50,994,082 popular votes to 50,461,080 for George W. Bush; Bush won the presidency by capturing 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266.

Contributed By:
Birch Bayh, D.J.
Attorney in private practice. Former U.S. Senator from Indiana.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Source:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576768/Electoral_College.html

Sorry, I know this thread is VA med oriented, waaay OT.
 
Electoral College:

A) The United States is NOT a democracy.
It is a Confederation of States.

B) The founders of this country recognized the danger of a democracy becoming a "tyranny of the majority" and sought to prevent that.

C) One of the measures they took was to arrange for the president to be elected by the STATES. The Electorial College is the embodiment of that design.

D) In a nation-wide presidential election it is NOT "one person, one vote" and that situation is by design by the founders of this nation. They forsaw that a few highly populated states could elect a president (nowadays say, CA, FL, and NY) if domocratic vote was used. They sought to avoid that, and decided that a majority of states should be required to elect a pesident. They decided that was the best way to protect the interests of the populations of the states. (One may agree of disagree with the founders on this point, but that is what they decided.) Smaller states or states with small populations now vie to hold their primaries ealier and earlier, in part as an attempt to to force presidential candidates to consider the wishes of their populace. If nation-wide democratic vote was held to determine the president, how many states would be simply written off as not worth any bother?

E) If the members of an the Electorial College do not properly represent the the interests of the population of a state, then that is the state's own fault . There is no rule that requires that all members of the electorial college of a state have to vote the same way. (Otherwise, why have more than one person?) A few states do not employ that ridiculous scheme.

The goal was to insure that the inhabitants of one state would be treated similarly to the inhabitants of another, more populous state. This concept has been almost entirely forgotten with the increasing federalization of the country with state and local control being ceeded to the growing Federal government.

In most presidential elections, the general vote of the aggregate populace clearly matches that of the electorial college, and it is not invoked.

Originally the the members of the House of Representatives were appointed by the state government, not elected. A constitutional ammendment changed that. That was another "Check and Balance". Elected congressmen reflecting the vote of a state's populace would be balanced by the representatives selected by the state's governments.

For an idea of why this was a good idea, consider today's tendancy of "Policy through Polling". A government can be thought of as a manager, and has to be able to plan and execute long-term projects. The Legislative branch makes LAWS--long-lasing or permanent things. A majority of the populace can be fickle, flip-flopping on issues. (Is it a co-incedence that the term of a reprensative is longer than the term of a congressman?) The orginal concept of the House of Representatives insured that the the popularly-elected legislators reflecting the populace's current views and the state government's representatives come to an agreement before making law. This was a good idea. If the House of Representatives actually still represented the interests of the state governments as intended, they would likely vote to impose a lot fewer burdensome unfunded Federal regulations upon the states.

In large, I think the nation's founders pretty much carefully considered the ramifications of the system that they devised. The fact that the current inhabitants of the country are ignorant of, misuse, or abuse the tools that the founders of the country provided to maintain and run a state based upon their concept of indidual freedom is no reason to abandon those tools. Let's try to use them the way that they were intended instead. Or elect someone that will.

[carting off soapbox, muttering incoherently]
 
Thanks for the counterpoint, Firkin. If it weren't the electoral college, then it would be California and New York carving up the country. Everything has its drawbacks, which is a good thing. Because if everything worked perfectly, what would we have to b!%@$ about? :D :rolleyes: :D
 
Finding out who are the most vocal proponets of abolishing the Electorial College is enough to convince me it must be a bad idea.

And apologies to Yvsa for helping to hijack this thread which he started to prevent hijacking another...:rolleyes: :)
 
I believe that the only system that can ensure election of the popular choice is direct popular election. It is a state's providence that either makes it populous or less populous. One citizen gets one vote. The Electoral college would have it that the voters in Montana essentially get more voting clout than those in Cali.

Of course, this could all be solved by throwing poower from the fed lvl back to the states, but I'm talking about electing a pres of the US, not other issues.
 
"I believe that the only system that can ensure election of the popular choice is direct popular election. It is a state's providence that either makes it populous or less populous. One citizen gets one vote. The Electoral college would have it that the voters in Montana essentially get more voting clout than those in Cali.


This boils down to the job of the president.

Is his task to represent the United States of America in interactions with the rest of the world, or just the interests of the most populous states that have the most highly populated cities.

The job of internal governence at a less than ntionwide level has been assigned to the Senate and Congress, though as I have remarked above the Senate has been perverted from the original intent.

"Of course, this could all be solved by throwing poower from the fed lvl back to the states, ..."

As was originally intended when the system was devised. This is the core of the problem.

"...I'm talking about electing a pres of the US, not other issues."

As were those that devised the original principles under which this country now occasionally operates. That's why they did things the way that they did.

The presidency is accorded in popular opinion and sadly in reality today, more power than was originally intended. It is not a eight year democratically enacted monarchy with provisional four year grace period.

The President was not intended to be abble to legislate alone, and was intended to represent the the STATES not the amaligimated general populace of the sum of the states.

Again I say, misuse the tool, be not surprised by less than optimal results.
 
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