Home > Opinion > Bonnie Erbe > AARP or No, Big Pharma's $80 Billion Discount Drug Offer Is Just a Smidgen

AARP or No, Big Pharma's $80 Billion Discount Drug Offer Is Just a Smidgen

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I dropped my plan with aarp, and went with National Medicare Supplements at http://www.nationalmedicaresupplements.com
They found me the same medicare plan F I had had, but for much lower. American Seniors Insurance at http://www.americanseniors.com is another good one.

jack of TX 5:33PM June 15, 2010

Anyone needing better rates on medicare supplement insurance, you can go to American Seniors.
I switched my old medicare supplement after the rates went up again, and bought a new one through them. The website for American Seniors is:
www.americanseniors.com

Walt of TX 4:45AM October 04, 2009

Anyone needing better rates on medicare supplement insurance, you can go to American Seniors.
I switched my old medicare supplement after the rates went up again, and bought a new one through them. The website for American Seniors is:
http://www.americanseniors.com

walt of TX 4:44AM October 04, 2009

Everyone should cancel AARP. They proved who they supported when they sold us out regarding Medicare Part D. The other thing AARP is supporting is the Nazi Mandatory Volunteer program Obama and Emanuel are pushing. This governmental administration does not want us to have more jobs available because they want to institute this program just as Adolf Hitler did. Americans need to wake up and start throwing these bums out. Jefferson said it well. Enough of this BS.

Noreen of CO 8:28AM August 08, 2009

Fluoride is the most wide-spread drug in America administered to virtually every human. Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth - making it a drug by definition. It cost New York City $24 million in 2008 to prescribe fluoride into the water supply in a failed effort to reduce tooth decay in tap-water drinkers. This without their informed consent, advice on contraindications, need or overdose.
Fluoride's benefits are topical - it's adverse effects systemic - meaning there is no good reason to swallow fluoride. Yet, we do.
Health will improve dramatically when the flow of fluoride stops. Tooth decay rates will NOT go up and millions possibly billions of dollars will be saved yearly. However, our elected officials care more about their political viability than your health and continue to kowtow to special interest groups to keep fluoridation alive.
Adverse health effects of fluoride are here: http://www.FluorideAction.Net/health

nyscof of NY 6:46AM July 12, 2009

HEy there, whoever is sitting there censoring all the comments! one minute there's an added comment which went to the number 7 and then all of the sudden...voila...back to only 6! Wow, I guess we'll let everyone know how US WORLD NEWS is being censored ...wheres the freedom of speech, huh? Don't ya'll abide by the law, the Constitution? How can you sleep at night, you're a terrosit by squelching a citizens' Constitutional rights! I guess you ned to be "rounded up" Guess I'll have to expose what you're doing worldwide!! US NEWS REPORTS censors citizens comments on the website!!! Guess it goes along with your regular news as well obviously!

Jeremiah Arbour of IL 8:31PM June 23, 2009

HOW ABOUT WE JUST DON'T USE INSURANCE & GET RID OF THE FDA HIDING THE GMF'S FROM THE PUBLIC & GET RID OF ALL THE BIG PHARMA THAT'S MAKING PEOPLE MORE SICK AND THE FLUORIDE (TOXIC) THAT'S IN OUR DRINKING WATER AND FORCE THE FDA AND FTC TO LEAVE THE NATURAL REMEDIES AND COMPANIES ALONE OR AT LEASE MAKE THE INSURANCE COVER THE NATURAL MEDICINES THAT CURE INSTEAD OF NOT APPROVING THEM AND ATTACKING THEM. PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID AND SEE NOW WHAT THE GOV'T IS DOING TO THIS COUNTRY ALL FOR THE SAKE OF POPULATIN CONTROL AND MONEY. OH, BY THE WAY, A PERSON WHO WOULD WANT TO ROUND UP THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO THEIR BELIEF AND REACTIONS TO A GOV'T THAT'S CORRUPT IS AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION. WE ARE OUTRAGED THAT YOU WOULD EVEN SUGGEST SUCH A NAZI IDEA DID IT EVER CROSS YOUR MIND THAT PERHAPS THE GOV'T OR CIA HIRED PEOPLE TO DO THIS SO THEY COULD PIN IT ON VETERNS OR SOME ANTISEMITIC GROUP OR RIGHT WING. IT'S NOT ABOUT RIGHT OR LEFT ANYMORE, IT'S ABOUT LIBERTY OR TYRANNY. GET ON BOARD LADY! THE GOV'T MANIPULATES THINGS EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES HOPING THAT THE MASSES WILL BE STUPIDE ENOUGH TO BELIEVE WHATEVER THEY SAY, WE ARE NOT AND WE DO NOT JUST WATCH THE PUPPET CENSORED MEDIA, WE HAVE OUR SOURCES OF UNCENSORED TRUTHS AND KNOW THE TRUTH...EVIDENTALLY SOME PEOPLE LIKE YOU DON'T AND ARE BLIND PUPPETS, GUESS YOU NEED THE MONEY OR SOMETHING, BUT I CAN TELL YOU NOW THAT I'M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN JUST LIKE YOURSELF AND DO NOT APPRECIATE YOUR SOCIALIST IDEOLOGY AND IF YOU THINK AMERICANS WILL ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN, YOU'RE DECEIVED AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE WRITING FOR A MAGAINE WITH THE TITLE US NEWS AND REPORT.

Dr. Jeremiah Arbour of IL 8:25PM June 23, 2009

The cost of doing business must be entirely recovered from customers, if a business is to survive for the long term. Pharmaceutical companies must charge what the market will bear to recover the cost of research, development, drug trials, and the FDA approval process. The amount of time they have to recover these costs is limited by the expiration date of the patent on the drug. Afterwards competitors, who did not bear these costs, will be able to produce the same drug at much reduced costs, because they only need to cover the cost of production, not research, development, testing, and FDA approval.
Therefore these up-front costs must be recovered before the patents expire, before they are confronted with low cost competition. Preventing companies from recovering these costs would prevent future research and development, as there would be no funding for it. Drugs likely to benefit the largest number of people are most likely to be produced, as the costs of research and development can be spread across a larger market of paying customers. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. Vast sums will not be spent on research and development that would only benefit a few people, as there would not be enough customers ready, willing, and able to pay for it. Trade-offs are as inescapable as they are tragic. For example, at some point, the testing designed to save lives from potential side effects costs more lives by keeping lifesaving drugs off the market too long.
Given finite resources, the free market distributes the greatest benefit among the most people, and provides us with the most effective pharmaceutical industry in the world, saving lives and extending lives like never before. But it does have its limits. If you believe these companies are excessively profitable, buy their stock. Look what our government has done to the banking industry, the housing industry, and the automobile industry. I do not even trust politicians to know what is best for us, nor to I trust them to be properly motivated, or be free from corrupting influences. They will only make things worse. Traveling the world you see the standard of living in other countries, and you see that all of the countries with socialized medicine are much poorer, having allowed their politicians to misallocate such a large proportion of their country’s resources on many different things, including healthcare, without much to show for it. Of course there are anecdotal exceptions, and many people go to Mexico and elsewhere to seek extraordinary measures not permitted by safeguards here.
More on Thalidomide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
P.S. Sorry about your father. No words of mine could be adequate to comfort you after such a loss. I wish you the strength and understanding needed for you to persevere. My uncle died from a rare drug reaction after a successful bypass operation. I know there is no compensating such a loss.

Barry of CA 6:15PM June 23, 2009

AARP has turned from being an advocacy group to being a private business. I don't know how they were incorporated or transformed, but they no longer provide any services or support to the nation's seniors. Other than this administration, no one considers them a representative of any group.
They should be held to the same consumer regulations as every other company selling insurance, credit cards and other sales scams.

libertyville of IL 9:11AM June 23, 2009

If you want to find out how this industry gets to do what it does, check out the hearings conducted by Sen Kefauver about 50 years ago. At that time 1000% profits were disclosed yet nothing happened to change it for another 50 years. If you live long enough you get to see the same story over and over again. The difference now is that there is no Sen. Kefauver to show them up for what they are. Max Baucus? What a joke.

Judith Abeles of CA 6:24PM June 22, 2009