This writer has had all kinds of jobs in her life. Teaching, working for the Census Bureau, and working in retail. If you can handle working in retail, you can handle anything, especially if you work retail during Christmas. I worked for a major department store for three years before it got bought out by Macy’s. The general manager and his two subordinates were so awful at their jobs that they were dubbed The Triumvirate of Doofuses or The Doofi. The only reason the general manager had the job was that he spoke Spanish. There was next to nothing going on upstairs with him. This writer has not seen another gathering of stupid like The Doofi until now.
Mark Cuban and James Talarico were in Fort Worth, Texas, to discuss “fixing healthcare” with Jessica Tarlov as the moderator. Boy, I bet that event caused a thrill to go up Chris Matthew’s leg. While Tarlov was laid back and relaxed in jeans, a button-down shirt, and tennis shoes, Talarico was attempting the "I am so cool" look in a blazer, jeans, and cowboy boots. Cuban was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, pants, and sneakers, and fit right in. All of them were trying so hard to look average and normal. No one on that stage would know what “normal” is even if it bit them on the backside. No one on that stage has ever had to worry about money or paying their bills on time.
Talarico spins a tale about walking 17 miles from Taylor, Texas, to Round Rock, Texas, for his 2018 Texas Senate campaign that made him fatigued and nauseous. He went to an ER the next morning and was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 29. He goes on to say that when he picked up his first 30-day supply of insulin, it cost him $684. Baloney. There is no way that he paid that much for insulin eight years ago. There are other parts to his story that don’t ring true either.
What time of year was he walking? If it was before the November election, it was probably quite warm. That area of Texas, the Hill Country, gets hot in the summer and takes some time to cool down after summer is over. The Hill Country regularly cracks 100 degrees in July, August, and part of September. If he was out there walking in the sun without a hat or anything to drink, it’s amazing that all he felt was fatigued and nauseous. This writer has suffered heat stroke a few times in her life. Feeling fatigued and nauseous was the least of her concerns.
He waited until the next morning to go to the ER. Waited to go? HE WAITED TO GO TO THE ER? WHY? If he felt that awful, there should've been NO waiting. The 30-day supply of insulin costing $684 is the biggest whopper of the story. Checking current prices online shows that a 30-day supply of brand-name, fast-acting insulin would cost at most $350, less than half of the price Talarico claims to have paid. Eight years ago? Not a chance.
The point of this story is not to think what kind of idiot is out walking in the hot Texas sun or waiting nearly a day to go to the ER; the point is to show how terrible the pharmaceutical companies are, and how terrible the insurance companies are. If only the federal government could “fix” the “broken” healthcare system, then everything would be wonderful! *eye roll*
What he leaves out, and what Tarlov is too busy hanging on his every word to notice, is that the U.S. already has public health insurance programs: Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor and indigent. When did those two programs start? July 30, 1965. Who started them? Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat. Leave it to a Democrat to create a problem and then claim that to fix the problem, more government is needed. People fall for it every single time.
Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Medicine — they all need to be taken down a peg. THEY’RE the reason everything is so expensive! While Big Pharma and Big Insurance have certainly helped Big Medicine make everything so much more expensive, they’re not the main reason. Big Government is. Once the federal government stepped in and said, “We’ll cover the cost whatever it is,” THAT’S when prices took off. If a business can charge whatever it wants and get paid that, what do you think will happen? Prices most certainly will NOT go down.
Mark Cuban, a huge liberal himself, actually did something to help bring down the cost of medications. He created CostPlus Drugs after an e-mail from a radiologist named Alex Oshmyansky. After looking at the CostPlus Drugs website and researching the prices for her medication, this writer can say she was pleasantly surprised by what she found. She has not had medical insurance, except for a couple of brief periods, since 2007 when she left retail. Cuban designed CostPlus Drugs as a disruptor and critique of the U.S. healthcare system by including direct-to-consumer pricing and reducing the role of pharmacy benefit managers. Perhaps Talarico can get his diabetes medication from CostPlus Drugs and save himself some money.
Companies like CostPlus Drugs are how the problem of expensive medications is solved. Short of removing the federal government from the equation, which I don’t see ever happening, Cuban’s creation of direct-to-market pharmaceuticals is one of the best ideas this writer has seen in a long, long time. It’s surprising that such an idea came from such a huge liberal, but it’s a good surprise.
Jessica Tarlov, as the moderator, didn’t cover anything but the questions she had written down. So, the moderator was a woman who has never had to worry about money in any way, shape, or form, asking questions about a variety of topics she has no clue about. Contrary to popular belief, this writer doesn’t hate Tarlov; she certainly does not begrudge the comfortable life she lives. No, what bothers her is that Tarlov doesn’t seem to care about doing actual research. She seems to accept at face value what the Democrat Party tells her and repeats it without bothering to find out the whole story. There is no curiosity in her, at least in terms of her job. She might have some figures or charts to support her position, but those don’t stand up to close scrutiny, as has been shown on many occasions on The Five.
So this discussion was staged by the Democrat Party in support of a Democrat, so a Democrat could pledge and promise to a room full of Democrat supporters that a Democrat would fix what another Democrat broke sixty years ago. This writer is all for lower costs in healthcare and prescription medication, but in order to have such things happen, an honest discussion over how the healthcare system reached the point it’s in will have to take place. That will not happen with the Democrats and, probably not with the Republicans. Talarico can make up all the stories he wants about how expensive healthcare is, but he won’t be honest. I don’t think he knows how.
Talarico may think he has a winning issue, but according to the polls, he doesn’t. After all the time, money, and energy the Democrat Party has spent on his race, he’s still neck and neck with Ken Paxton. What does that tell you?
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