The Breaking News first….

Tiger Woods is playing golf again…..all is right with the world.

The slap heard around the world is still news?  antics by a couple of over-paid entertainers.

Dippety Dua wore a sheer dress on the red carpet…who cares……she has the build of a wrapped bowling pin.

There you go the crap passed off as news.

But there was some news that would have been better covered….

A little FYI for diabetes suffers and those whose family is dealing with the disease….

If you suffer from diabetes then you know how expansive your medications has become…..as I diabetic myself I use Ozempic which without a health plan costs $900 a month, depending on your dosage….then there is the cost of insulin and other medication….outrageously high costs.

But for those that are fortunate enough to not suffer from this affliction a little background…..

Getting health care in the U.S. is pricey as hell and few people understand this better than Americans with diabetes, some of whom have to pay hundreds of dollars each month for insulin. For the past several years, insulin prices have actually gone up, with some paying upwards of $5,705 per year for medication that is truly not optional. Hopefully, their capitalist nightmare might soon be over: On Thursday, the House passed a bill that aims to cap the cost of insulin at $35 per month for anyone with insurance, including Medicare.

Surprisingly, the bill achieved some semblance of bipartisanship, with unanimous support from Democrats and a whopping 12 Republicans, per the New York Times. Now, it needs to get at least 10 votes from Republicans in the Senate before it becomes law. If this bill does get passed, one in five Americans with diabetes will be saving a pretty penny.

No one takes insulin for fun, which makes the outrageous prices that Americans have to pay — again, one vial of insulin can cost up to $250 — grossly unethical. For people with diabetes, shots of insulin are necessary for their pancreas to produce glucose and balance their blood glucose levels. Many who take insulin have to take it everyday and the prohibitively high prices lead to rationing, trying to find it on the black market or worse, deciding to go without.

Still, this bill is not a total cause for celebration. The people who have to pay the most for insulin, uninsured Americans, will not benefit from it at all. Many are criticizing the Democrats for watering down their original prescription drug package, which would have extended insulin coverage to uninsured Americans, per the Times. That bill, which had hoped to cap all prescription drug prices, is currently stalled in the Senate.

https://www.mic.com/life/insulin-might-finally-become-affordable

Bi-partisan support?

Maybe some but then you have the idiot from Florida, Matt Gaetz, who voted against saving his voters some money……

The House passed a bill on Thursday to cap the price of insulin to $35 a month, which even had the support of 12 House Republicans. But Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–FL) wasn’t among them. Not only did the smug congressman vote against making the life-saving drug affordable for the more than 37 million Americans affected by diabetes, he also said, “the price of insulin increases as waistlines increase,” and that people with diabetes should just exercise more and lose weight.

In his newsletter Friday, Gaetz told his constituents that he opposed the bill because fat people, not Big Pharma, are responsible for driving up the cost of insulin. He suggested that Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to obesity, could be cured if only people would workout more and lose weight, at which point they wouldn’t need insulin anymore and the drug costs would fall without government intervention. Gaetz wrote:

While Democrat posturing of H.R. 6833 victimizes insulin payees as people with an uncontrollable disease that are being taken advantage of and need Big Brother to throw them a raft, lifestyle changes en masse would expeditiously lower demand and the subsequent prices of insulin. 90-95% of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which “can be prevented or delayed with healthy lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, eating healthy food, and being active.” Arbitrary price controls are no substitute for individual weight control. Since 2000, the number of diabetes cases in the U.S. has nearly doubled. The demand for insulin has increased and the requisite price increase has followed suit. In other words, the price of insulin increases as waistlines increase. 

More than a quarter of Florida residents are obese, including Gaetz’s favorite Palm Beach resident, former president Donald Trump. And more than 10 percent of the state’s population suffers from diabetes, not all of which is caused by lifestyle factors. Gaetz’s attempt to sympathize with then was probably not very convincing. “While I empathize with all Americans suffering from disease and will continue to fight Big Pharma, I voted against H.R. 6833,” he wrote. “I will not see a reemergence of FDR price controls and join the Democrats in their attempt to pave the Road to Serfdom.”

Matt Gaetz votes no on making insulin affordable because, he says, people should just lose weight

Seriously?

Does this d/bag understand there are two types of diabetes?

Why would anyone in his district vote for someone who is apparently paid by Big Pharma to make the voters suffer?

Sadly they will probably re-elect this slug of a human.

The House has passed this  bill in question…..

The House voted Thursday in favor of a bill to cap out-of-pocket costs on insulin at $35 a month, a policy Democrats hope will give them a concrete win to campaign on when they face voters in November as the rest of their health care agenda remains stalled.

“At the end of the day, I hope that we can still bring forward a reconciliation bill with additional reforms this year. I know we need to do Medicare drug price negotiation,” Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the lead sponsor of the insulin bill, told POLITICO. “But we can’t wait any longer to act on insulin.”

Despite concerns about the bill’s policyand strategy from both sides of the aisle, nearly all House Democratsas well as a dozen Republicans voted for it Thursday. Yet it faces slimodds in the Senate, where Democratic leaders are combining an out-of-pocket cap on insulin — led by vulnerable Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) — with a still-in-the-works bipartisan bill from Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to cut the drug’s cost.

The insurance industry tried to persuade lawmakers to oppose the measure, arguing it does not lower the actual price of insulin and could lead to higher premiums.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/31/house-passes-insulin-bill-00022073

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”