I really wish that Ralph Nader was back. I was a child when he was doing his work, but what I remember is the word boycott. When companies were being unfair in their business practices or when products were no good for you, we were told, don’t spend your money there. Don’t buy that product. Eventually the person pedaling the bad product would learn the lesson and change things.
Could the People Say No to Bad Products?
We need that kind of consumerism in the United States. It seems that just about anything can be sold here in the U.S. We buy eyedrops that cannot be purchased in the European Union (EU) because the measurement mechanism is wasteful and drips all over your clothing instead of being absorbed in your eyes. The EU doesn’t allow that mechanism to be sold in their countries.
One Area Where We Can’t Say No
When we are sick, we don’t really have a choice about whether or not to take medication. If we don’t take the medication, we can suffer greatly, have terrible consequences that can even include death. We cannot boycott medication.
The other thing that we cannot do is control the pricing of the medication that we need to keep us alive. The news stories that came out about diabetics dying because they didn’t have insulin were so real and uniquely American. We are the only first world country that force sick people to buy medications and to buy those medications at any inflated price that drug companies demand. After all Americans allow capitalism above all human values, even human life.
Often a drug company will tell us that our prescription is pricey because Research and Development is pricey. Then Congress tells us that they pay for the majority of R & D.
So where is that price coming from? Very simply put, it is profit.
We the American people elect Congress in the hopes that someone up there in Washington D.C. will protect us from unfair pricing policies. We need help with all of the companies that are after our money. When it comes to healthcare, we are doubly cursed by the fact we pay big insurance premiums in many ways, both by insurance companies and through taxes in the form of Medicare D and Advantage plans.
No one is out there protecting the American public. According to: NYRequirements.com
“In 2022, big pharmaceutical companies spent more than $372 million on federal lobbying, according to OpenSecrets.org. The pharmaceutical industry has more than 1,450 lobbyists, 66% of whom are former government employees. The U.S. also has the highest drug prices in the world. Coincidence?”
I’m going to guess that it is not a coincidence that the U.S. has the highest drug prices in the world. The highest level of lobbying, the highest level of investment into lobbying and damn, you’ve got an amazing profit! I’m also going to state unequivocally that in no other first world country did diabetics die from lack of insulin. For my friends in Canada, the U.K. and Australia, until Biden became the President, patients who couldn’t afford insulin in America, could die. We still allow women without health insurance who have breast cancer to die.
What’s next?
Gridlock until we can get a Congress and the American people to agree on a set of ethics that says that it is wrong to accept gifts. ANY gifts at all, let me repeat that, ANY gifts at all. No campaign contributions can exceed $100.00.
We have to be ridiculous if we want to take back our country. We have to be ridiculous if we want to live.
If we want to wake up in a humane world eventually, we have to start telling the truth.
Congress, why are drug prices so high in America? Now, the truth this time.