Irreconcilable Editorialists

Only in very serious minds can these conceptions of the US government co-exist:

1. The US government is so hopelessly inefficient and incompetent, that any attempt to deliver government-provided health insurance (or the option thereof) to the uninsured (and some/all of the already-insured) is an unprecedented fool’s pipe dream of a fantasy of a boondoggle with no chance for any positive outcome. Also, socialism.

And at a price tag of $1.2 trillion dollars over ten years, there is no way we can afford to chase such fantastical chimera.

AND

2. The US government is so remarkably efficient and competent that it can transform (wholesale) Iraqi and Afghan societies (at the same time) and remake those societies into US-friendly, Western-conceived models of good governance, free market economics and liberal democracy all through multi-decade armed occupations. These goals are easily attainable for a government so adept at devising and delivering effective political, economic, social service and governance measures, and resounding victory is almost certain, as long as we don’t lose our nerve and do something foolish like withdraw.

And at a price tag of $3-4 trillion dollars over the past 8 years, the continuation of these policies at that burn rate for the next 25-50 years would be a bargain.

http://thepoorman.net/2009/11/09/the-very-serious-paradox/

Turn About Is Fair Play

An Immoderate Proposal
by digby

I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, [as a woman] I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)

Many of the men who are prescribed this medication are on Medicare, so I think it should be stripped out of that coverage as well. And unlike the payments for abortion, which actually lower overall medical costs (pregnancy obviously costs much, much more) banning tax dollars from covering any kind of Viagra would result in a substantial savings.

The price of Pfizer’s Viagra has doubled since it was launched, according to a list of wholesale acquisition costs paid by pharmacies, obtained by BNET. In May 1999, a 100-count bottle of the blue diamonds cost $700. Today, that same bottle costs $1,457.61, a 108 percent increase.

The blog of online pharmacy AccessRx notes that Pfizer has also been extracting more frequent price rises in addition to higher price rises:

… we’re not sure if you’ve been tracking price increases recently, but Pfizer began to raise the cost of Viagra twice a year instead of once a year in 2007. Including the last six price increases since Jan. 1, 2007, the price of Viagra has gone up 45.5%.

The WAC list indicates that while Pfizer was initially content to take price increases of 3 percent per year, in 2003 it doubled that increase. In January 2009, Pfizer bumped it up to 11 percent. Then in August it took another 5 percent.

It’s an astonishing example of pricing power, given that Viagra is in direct competition with Eli Lilly’s Cialis and Bayer’s Levitra. The heat from Cialis is particularly severe: Cialis sales in the U.S. were up 16 percent to $149.4 million in Q2; Pfizer’s Viagra was up only 4 percent at $207 million.

I don't want my tax dollars touching even one milimeter of that overly engorged expense.

I realize that many people disagree with my moral objections to men getting erections which God clearly doesn't want them to get, but my principles on this are more important to me than theirs are to them. So too bad. If you want a boner, pay for it yourself.

digby 11/11/2009 02:00:00 PM [lightly edited by a. littlebird ptolemey]