PREDICTION: Sadly, Repugnicunts will continue firearms recalcitrance until one of their own, or a family member, is… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…>•<Think on this a little while.>•< 2 days ago
"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the United States averaging 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
The gap between prices in the United States and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 3.44 times those in comparison nations.
The RAND study found that prices for unbranded generic drugs—which account for 84% of drugs sold in the United States by volume but only 12% of U.S. spending—are slightly lower in the United States than in most other nations.
“Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of the higher prescription drug prices in the United States,” said Andrew Mulcahy, lead author of the study and a senior health policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “We found consistently high U.S. brand name prices regardless of our methodological decisions.”
The RAND analysis is based on 2018 data and provides the most up-to-date estimates of how much higher drug prices are in the United States as compared to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers calculated price indexes under a wide range of methodological decisions. While some sensitivity analyses lowered the differences between U.S. prices compared to those in other nations, under all the scenarios overall prescription drug prices remained substantially higher in the United States.
Prescription drug prices in the United States are, on average, 2.56 times higher than the prices in 32 other countries. That’s according to a new RAND report.
Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of America’s higher prescription drug prices: For branded drugs, U.S. prices averaged 3.44 times higher than those in other nations. Prices for generic drugs, on the other hand, are slightly lower in the United States than in most other countries.
Tennessee River flooding (bottom) contrasted with normal conditions (top) under O’Neal Bridge which joins Colbert (in the south) and Lauderdale (to the north) counties in the Shoals area of NW AL
Some folks talk about a “Green New Deal” as a prospective course of action to remedy (ameliorate) the effects of Climate Change, and to provide economic impetus.
While there may be some merit to some aspects of that now-nebulous idea, there is a much more immediate and concrete need we have in response to Climate Change.
And that is, to build, expand, and repair our Economic Infrastructure in order to reduce – as much as humanly possible – the costly continual damages that are now occurring, and which will continue to occur, because of Climate Change.
When faced with flooding, a proper response is not to try and stop the rain;
it is to build levees, dams, waterways, sluices, ponds, and other hydrological management resources – including pipelines, and other such mechanisms – to prevent the damage that would otherwise occur without implementation of such measures.
Here’s a very real case in point to illustrate that very matter – the North Sea Flood of 1953.
Buid Zeeland, Netherlands 1953 North Sea Flood Image made by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from a U.S. Army helicopter of the 1953 North Sea Flood in the Netherlands.
Described as the worst natural disaster in Europe in modern times, the flooding occurred over a two-day period January 31 – February 1, and affected Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland, with a total of 2551 lives lost, and 1836 in the Netherlands alone.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Just Like Food “Expiration” Dates, Drug “Expiration” Dates Are Also Fake… And It’s Co$ting You BIGTIME
Hospitals and pharmacies are required to toss expired drugs, no matter how expensive or vital. Meanwhile the FDA has long known that many remain safe and potent for years longer.
The box of prescription drugs had been forgotten in a back closet of a retail pharmacy for so long that some of the pills predated the 1969 moon landing. Most were 30 to 40 years past their expiration dates – possibly toxic, probably worthless.
But to Lee Cantrell, who helps run the California Poison Control System, the cache was an opportunity to answer an enduring question about the actual shelf life of drugs: Could these drugs from the bell-bottom era still be potent?
Cantrell called Roy Gerona, a University of California, San Francisco, researcher who specializes in analyzing chemicals. Gerona had grown up in the Philippines, and had seen people recover from sickness by taking expired drugs with no apparent ill effects.
“This was very cool,” Gerona says. “Who gets the chance of analyzing drugs that have been in storage for more than 30 years?”
Pharmacist and Toxicologist Lee Cantrell tested medicines that had been “expired” for decades. Most of them were still potent enough to be on shelves today. (Lee Huffaker for ProPublica)
The age of the drugs might have been bizarre, but the question the researchers wanted to answer wasn’t.
Pharmacies across the country in major medical centers and in neighborhood strip malls routinely toss out tons of scarce and potentially valuable prescription drugs when they hit their expiration dates.
Gerona and Cantrell, a pharmacist and toxicologist, knew that the term “expiration date” was a misnomer. The dates on drug labels are simply Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Fact is, “ObamaCare” – which is properly known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA for short – though it’s monikered with POTUS Obama’s name, was largely a Republican brainchild from the über-conservative Heritage Institution.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, February 27, 2016
Recently, on February 23, 2016, AL.com published an OpEd entitled “Would legalizing cannabis solve Alabama’s budget problems?” written by Reggie C. Pulliam, whom was identified as “a resident of Gulf Shores who has worked on public policy and criminal justice reform in Washington, D.C.”
I found his Op-Ed unconvincing because it’s poorly written.
Speaking from the floor of the United States Senate Thursday, 29 October 2015, he said in part, “When we talk about criminal justice reform, I believe it is time for the United States of America to join almost every other Western, industrialized country on Earth in saying no to the death penalty.”
Speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire Wednesday, 28 October 2015, she said in part, “I do not favor abolishing it, however, because I do think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty, but I’d like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we’ve seen in most states.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, May 8, 2015
TVA announced recently the Board of Directors voted to close the last operating unit of 8 coal-fired electricity generating operating units at their Widow’s Creek facility near Stevenson, AL by October 2015.
Especially problematic was the issue of costs associated with storing “fly ash” the toxic residual waste generated by burning coal. While fly ash is used in construction of roads, and in concrete, there is more waste generated than used.
Nationwide, increased “accidents” from accumulated and overfilled swamps of coal ash have polluted rivers and water supplies. Remediation costs associated with cleanup, and repair of waste storage facilities has proven unprofitable for TVA and other coal-burning electricity-generating utilities.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, December 19, 2014
McD’s began rationing French Fries Wednesday morning, December 17, at it’s 3100 Japanese locations as an emergency airlift of 1,000 tons of spuds and an extra shipment by sea from the U.S. East Coast set sail.
The highly processed frozen spuds are deep-fryer ready, and a leading U.S. export. Folks in the Land of The Rising Sun love their French Fried spuds, and eat more than 300k tons of the imported American tuber annually, according to USDA figures. Of particular note, most of Japan’s locally grown potatoes are eaten fresh.
McD’s continually denies any responsibility, role or contribution to increased obesity, either in America, or abroad where they conduct business. But increased rates of Japanese obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, suggest not conspiracy, but wanton disregard for, if not flagrant violation of, Japan’s Ministry of Health 2008 ‘Metabo Law’ that requires men to maintain a waist line less than 33.5 inches and women less than 35.4 inches.
A McDonald’s in Japan
The American Fast Food Industry was introduced to Japan in the 1970’s, and since then, consumption of rice in the daily Japanese diet has decreased and been replaced by bread, meat, dairy products, hamburgers, French fries, milkshakes and doughnuts.
Similarly to America, one of the time-honored Family Values of enjoying freshly prepared food at home has declined, and consumption of Industrially Prepared Food, and use of video games has risen.
Even though the Japanese diet still includes much more fish having omega-3 fatty acids, the adoption of a more ‘Western Diet’ is causing health problems. O3FAs are thought to protect against heart disease, and on average, the Japanese eat much less food high in saturated fat than Americans.
The Japanese government has quickly acknowledged the damaging health effects of Industrialized Food Production, which is known as the Standard American Diet, and has moved to disincentivize their citizens from becoming obese like Americans.
Japanese people have historically enjoyed a high life expectancy, very nearly 80 years, although in recent years, their increase in longevity has slowed to 1.2%. The Japanese health care system provides Universal Coverage primarily through local government or employer insurance, and the system is foreseeing dire financial trouble because chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high glucose levels and cholesterol will significantly burden the system.
As the Japanese population ages and their health begins to deteriorate, the workforce will not be large enough to cover those health costs. The government sees an opportunity to cut costs by lowering rising obesity.
Chris Arnade received his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He spent the next 20 years working as a trader on Wall Street. He left trading in 2012 to focus on photography. His “Faces of Addiction” series explores addiction in the south Bronx neighbourhood in New York City. Follow him on Twitter: @Chris_arnade
As a college student, Chris Arnade picked Florida watermelons to pay for school. His daughter can’t do the same. Photograph: Alamy
When I entered Wall Street in 1993 with a PhD, I was an anomaly. One of my bosses was a failed baseball player, another a frustrated jazz musician. One of the guys running one of the most profitable businesses, in both my firm and all of Wall Street, was a former elevator repairman. Their college degrees – if they even had them – were from all sorts of schools, not simply the Ivy leagues.
By the time I left Wall Street a few years ago, the only people being hired were the “play it safe kids”. The ones with degrees from Princetons and Harvards. You know, the ones who had organized a soup kitchen in eighth grade (meaning, really their parents had) to load their resumes. The ones who had gone to the state science fair (meaning their parents or nannies had spent many weekends and nights helping with a science project). Few of these hires where rags-to-riches stories. Most had parents very much like those already working on Wall Street – wealthy and dedicated to getting their children whatever they needed, regardless of cost. Many were in fact the children of Wall Street parents.
It is not just Wall Street. Most of the best paying jobs now require a college degree, or post-college degree, and still rarely hire from state schools. They want Ivy schools, or similar. That feels safe.
This is a problem. Businesses have abdicated their primary role in hiring, handing it over to colleges, which have gladly accepted that role, and now charge a shit-load for it. Want a job kid? Pay $60,000 a year for four years. Then maybe pay for another two to get a MBA.
Yet, those best schools do not teach kids anything radically different from what the average colleges do. They do not prepare them better for the day-to-day work of Wall Street. Those finance skills are learned with experience and instinct after two years of training – on the job.
Rather, a prestigious education is a badge given to students who can follow the established rules, run through the maze, jump through hoops, color between the lines, and sit quietly. It shows that they really, really want to be a grown-up. For that, they pay $60,000 per year.
It has become a test. Are you part of the meritocracy?
It also has become a barrier of entry to professionalism – a very costly barrier of entry.
A rigid system of ‘feeder’ schools is in place for parents who want their children to attend schools like Harvard, which have a reputation for then ‘feeding’ major Wall Street firms. Photograph: Porter Gifford/Corbis
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, October 3, 2012
At the time of publication of this report – September 2011 – the complete data was not in. However, initial results indicated that cost containment was well under way.
Latest survey finds health benefit cost growth for 2012 likely to be the lowest in 15 years
United States , New York
Publication date: 21 September 2011
Early responses from a Mercer survey still in the field suggest that the average growth in health benefit cost will slow to 5.4% in 2012, the smallest increase since 1997. Still, cost growth remains well above both general inflation and growth in workers’ earnings (see Fig. 1).
While this increase reflects cost-cutting changes employers will make to their current health benefit programs, such as raising deductibles or moving employees into lower-cost health plans, the preliminary survey findings released today by Mercer suggest that the underlying trend has slowed as well. Asked how much cost would rise if they made no changes to their current plans, employers reported an average increase of 7.1%. Over the past five years, this underlying health benefit cost trend has been running at about 9%.
The slower trend is good news for workers, because an employer’s first line of defense against a high initial renewal rate typically is to change plan provisions so that employees pay more out of pocket for health care. If the underlying trend is lower to begin with, employers will be likely to shift less cost. For the past several years, employers have reduced their initial renewal rate by about 3 percentage points on average; in 2012, they are planning to reduce it by about 2 points (Fig. 2).
Warm Southern Breeze 