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[alway]

Lol on that edit Strife....

Anyways, I wonder if the sudden price hike in Obamacare is going to count as an October surprise (if a late one)? I guess it would be more applicable as it's not something directly connected to either candidate*. Probably won't have a major impact, but there could very well be some kind of shift.

*Some would argue it's directly linked to Clinton because she supports it.

From what I heard, it impacted less than 1% of people and still wasn't anything notable considering similar (and higher!) price increases had been occurring every year prior to it being enacted. So it will bounce around the echo chambers and that's about it.

[SalmonGod]

I found out the other day that my son's test strips for his blood sugar monitor have doubled in price in the last couple years.

[Frumple]

... any idea why? Is that because of the ACA or just whoever you're buying it from/whatever insurance you're using being the normal sort of jackass? Because the latter hasn't exactly stopped with the ACA coming in. Just got slowed down, to a degree.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's not too surprising. If it weren't bad enough that treatment costs are continuously rising, so are the number of diabetics. When there's money to be made...

[mainiac]

... any idea why? Is that because of the ACA or just whoever you're buying it from/whatever insurance you're using being the normal sort of jackass? Because the latter hasn't exactly stopped with the ACA coming in. Just got slowed down, to a degree.

More healthcare cost more money, basically.  Get all those people who had what was previously bronze or sub-bronze coverage into silver plans and the costs go up.

[birdy51]

The voting has begun for me. I have my absentee ballot and am filling it out for Ohio. Last minute research gave me a happy though, as Rob Portman seems to be a Republican who is willing to cross the aisle on issues that I support such as marriage equality.

So, yay.

[Frumple]

... any idea why? Is that because of the ACA or just whoever you're buying it from/whatever insurance you're using being the normal sort of jackass? Because the latter hasn't exactly stopped with the ACA coming in. Just got slowed down, to a degree.

More healthcare cost more money, basically.  Get all those people who had what was previously bronze or sub-bronze coverage into silver plans and the costs go up.

Question was more intended towards whether there was something unusual for SG's situation or specific to the ACA. Instead of knock-on effects, or, well. Normal stuff. Like what you and MSH mentioned, heh.

[mainiac]

Oh well companies being greedy bastards with patents isn't exclusive to healthcare but there has been a lot of it in healthcare recently.  Intellectual property naturally tends towards price gouging.

In tangentally related anecdotes, one time I put my department head on the spot in the middle of a lecture and got him to decide that according to his model of consumer utility it would in fact make sense to tax insulin in order to pay for tax cuts elsewhere. 

[SalmonGod]

Nothing specific to my situation.  I get them free most of the time, because my kids are still on medicaid.  But their insurance is really, really stingy with the things.  They practically drown us in insulin and needles.  I don't think we could run out of that stuff if we tried.  But they only ever provide barely enough test strips to get by month to month.  This has led to us being forced to buy out of pocket more than a few times.

Medicaid is also really picky about which brands they'll buy.  Turns out they only buy one of the most expensive brands of blood sugar monitors.  We didn't know this for the longest time, because we always went to the same drug store for our prescriptions that didn't carry any cheaper brands.  So we just accepted that if we had to buy out of pocket, it would be $50.  That's a 50-pack of $1 per piece.  No smaller options.

In the last couple years, that drug store stopped operating 24 hours, so we found ourselves having to go somewhere else.  There we found there are cheaper monitors that also offer 25-packs of test strips (still $1 a piece).  So we now have a back-up monitor for when we run out before insurance will refill.  A couple days ago this happened, and I found our back-up has been discontinued.  So I had to buy a whole new set that's slightly more expensive.  As I was doing this, I happened to notice that not only have the cheaper options gone up in price... but the test strips medicaid gets us are now $110 for a 50-pack off the shelf.  To put that in perspective, we go through a MINIMUM of 5 test strips a day.

[Phmcw]

Nationals health cares in Europe are notoriously hard negotiators. Which makes sense since they can pretty much lock companies out of each national market, so they fight on equal term with medical giants.


If Medicare in the US want to be affordable and of good quality it need to do the same : simply refuse to be price-gouged and go for the next best option.
Of course it will take time, even if they do everything right, because they need time to drive prices down. You'll know that they do things right if pharmaceutical companies, doctors unions and other big interests are screaming bloody murder.

[Loud Whispers]

I used to disagree with RPG but then I read that post and changed my mind.  But then I read Strife's post and changed my mind again.

Yes, how witty. >.>
I could find the studies, if you like?
And nah, Strife, propaganda is telling someone what they're supposed to think. Guiding someone through changing their own mind has significantly less telling and significantly more getting them to reevaluate what they currently believe and see if they think that's accurate.

Where I'm from, teaching is this thing where you give them new knowledge or instruct them how to gain your skills

What you're describing is proselytizing the heretics

this is why the west is 2spooky and must die

I found out the other day that my son's test strips for his blood sugar monitor have doubled in price in the last couple years.

How many Shkrelis are there?

[Rolepgeek]

I used to disagree with RPG but then I read that post and changed my mind.  But then I read Strife's post and changed my mind again.

Yes, how witty. >.>
I could find the studies, if you like?
And nah, Strife, propaganda is telling someone what they're supposed to think. Guiding someone through changing their own mind has significantly less telling and significantly more getting them to reevaluate what they currently believe and see if they think that's accurate.

Where I'm from, teaching is this thing where you give them new knowledge or instruct them how to gain your skills

What you're describing is proselytizing the heretics

? There can be multiple meanings of the word. I certainly wouldn't call it proselytizing. To be taught, one has to want to be taught. That was my point. To change your mind, and particularly your mindset, you have to be willing.

[martinuzz]

Nothing specific to my situation.  I get them free most of the time, because my kids are still on medicaid.  But their insurance is really, really stingy with the things.  They practically drown us in insulin and needles.  I don't think we could run out of that stuff if we tried.  But they only ever provide barely enough test strips to get by month to month.  This has led to us being forced to buy out of pocket more than a few times.

Medicaid is also really picky about which brands they'll buy.  Turns out they only buy one of the most expensive brands of blood sugar monitors.  We didn't know this for the longest time, because we always went to the same drug store for our prescriptions that didn't carry any cheaper brands.  So we just accepted that if we had to buy out of pocket, it would be $50.  That's a 50-pack of $1 per piece.  No smaller options.

In the last couple years, that drug store stopped operating 24 hours, so we found ourselves having to go somewhere else.  There we found there are cheaper monitors that also offer 25-packs of test strips (still $1 a piece).  So we now have a back-up monitor for when we run out before insurance will refill.  A couple days ago this happened, and I found our back-up has been discontinued.  So I had to buy a whole new set that's slightly more expensive.  As I was doing this, I happened to notice that not only have the cheaper options gone up in price... but the test strips medicaid gets us are now $110 for a 50-pack off the shelf.  To put that in perspective, we go through a MINIMUM of 5 test strips a day.

If you want to cut spending on the healthcare budget, insulin should be made free. The cost of 1 person having to be picked up by an ambulace and hospitalized, perhaps even for the duration of years if it's so severe that the diabetic person ends up in a coma, could be higher than supplying insulin for free to all diabetics (or at least those in risk of severe injury when devoid of insulin), if only the pharmaceutical industry would offer it at sane pricing instead of 10^n production costs.
I'm sure there's quite a few other life-saving medicine that would also save money if made free.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I question if you read SG's post. He has no shortage of insulin, he has a shortage of testing strips. The goal of the system is to provide the materials needed in the quantities they are needed, not to "make things free".

You'd never realistically end up in a situation where insulin was being denied formally or functionally, because even otherwise ignorant people know what insulin is. That really would cause public unrest, like the EpiPen scandal. But testing strips? Nobody not using testing strips knows the quantity needed or the importance of having them. I certainly couldn't guess the average number of blood tests a diabetic person needs in a month.

And, as a matter of fact, we see the imbalance in provided materials here. If SG is being afforded so many needles and bottles of insulin that he has an unreasonable excess, but so few testing strips that it's a problem, then the clear conclusion is that some of the money for the latter should be used for the former.

[martinuzz]

Ofcourse those should come free along with the insulin. No use having insulin if you can't test if you need it. It's like giving someone an injectable drug but no syringe.