cost containment

Maybe we should teach medical economics to our students.  Take for example drugs that you might have to take in the future.  Will you be able to afford them, or will you have to get them on the black-market,  will they still be around for you?

If I was a teacher my first assignment would be to write a paper on how you would earn a living in the absences of a thriving economy.  I bet some of the students would go over to the dark side.  Then I would give two grades one by the students, and a weighted one by moi.  This way I would not be totally  blamed for many of those failures, yet still take credit for some of their success.

There is a medication, Micardis HCT, made by Boehringer Ingelheim.  Sounds German to me.  Shit it is German!  M is a combination medication, that means they take one medication telmisartan and hydrochlorothiazide and mix them 40mg/12.5 mg ratio.  The latter is abbriviated HCTZ.   It has been around for some time and it is very inexpensive.  The former telemisartan ran out of patent, so in order to increase profits, they mixed with an old medication  HCTZ and called it a new product.  Damn nazies, bite the hand that feeds them.

Of course the FDA that wont let us go outside the country to buy drugs cheaper, will allow foreigner to come and sell us stuff, and overprice us.  If we bought both medications seperate, the cost of the HCTZ would be minimal and the other would be genetic also considerably less.  

This method of pricing medications should be outlawed, we should return to Germany, dig up Patton, clone the SOB, and tell him to get our money back.