Looking for Explanations

Please. Help me.

I am trying REALLY HARD to understand a number of things. I consider myself a smart and thoughtful person¹, and one who thinks things through. In moments of frustrated disbelief, I egocentrically believe that if people just did things my way, the world would work better.

Let’s start with the cost of pharmaceuticals. Morningstar had a piece mostly on the market effects of the latest threat to drug companies to lower prices. The quote I struggled over:

“…[P]harma management teams have met with the administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but there have not been any moves by pharma to lower prices—meetings were mostly explaining to the administration why it is so hard to raise international prices, such as tight budgets and willingness to reject coverage if prices are too high."

My reading of the quote is that drug companies can’t earn enough money to make their shareholders happy unless they charge exorbitant rates here in the States to make up for the ceilings imposed on other countries.

Two points: until the current regime, a lot of drug development costs were paid for by NIH. Source. Why wouldn’t the drug companies endeavor to negotiate for the continuation of that funding instead of looking at prices charged for the medications themselves? The largest cost for medications is in the development, as opposed to the cost of ingredients.

Second, domestically, drug prices paid have little to nothing to do with the list prices, and money siphoned off through the process by PBMs and rebate programs.

I don’t know anything about accounting and balance sheets and how companies look at profits and losses related to the documentation they put out to stockholders. But I know this: I take a cancer drug that has a list price of about $16,000². The manufacturer has a program that “pays” for my drug³, and that amount is $5,000, with no additional drug cost to me. My insurance company counts the $5,000 against my deductible in January. Once my deductible is paid, the insurance company “accepts” $5,000 per dose. How much does the drug actually cost? Hard to tell.

If I didn’t have insurance, I’d owe the $16,000 per dose, and likely either be dead because I couldn’t afford the medication, or bankrupt, or both. Again, how much does the drug ACTUALLY cost?

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Moving on to Hispanics. As you’re certainly aware, Texas is trying to redo their map to make their Congressional seats more Rethuglican. If you study the map, you’ll see that they’re counting on Hispanic votes. Framework. It’s very clear that, like most politicians, they’re fighting the last war, and they did very well with Hispanics, as he garnered 42% of the vote.

Here’s my question. I believe (and I could be wrong) that every single voting American of Hispanic extraction is either related to, friends with, or otherwise associated with, at least one other Hispanic who is either undocumented, seeking asylum, DACA or in some other way at risk from Theodor Dannecker⁴ Stephen Miller and his crew of round-up agents.

Why would ANY Hispanic vote for anyone committed to destroying their families, friends and communities? And make no mistake, every single elected Rethuglican is complicit, as they all voted to spend billions on rounding up human beings.

I have never understood why people vote against their best interests. But this is even more extreme than just “getting less money”, which is normally what idiots vote for.

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My final question for today regards separation of people. We all know that the fascists, almost by definition, are into what Rachel Bitecofer calls “Othering”. Read all about it here. Cliff Notes version: authoritarian regimes look to place blame on people for what they are, to encourage violence against them.

My question relates to generational markers. We are Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z or Gen Alpha. When did we start dividing ourselves like this? I bet no one did this a hundred years ago (or before). It seems another way of separating people for not only for “no good reason”, but to cause division. Often, I hear that “All Boomers do this” or “All Gen Z people do that” - and none of the generations are monolithic.

Don’t get me wrong, older generations have always complained about the youth. Here’s a quote:

“The children now love luxury; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are tyrants, not servants of the households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.”

Do you know who said that? Socrates. But still: why do we look for more ways to divide people because of things over which they have no control?

1. Others may disagree.

2. I’m using round numbers throughout this example.

3. Yes, that means they pay themselves.

4. Steve’s historical mentor, as Dannecker was the person in Miller’s position under Eichmann who was the “detail guy” in charge of Nazi round-ups.