Have we talked about what Mark Cuban is doing? If it’s been posted, I missed it.
Please tell others that take these. We expect to add more than 1k more meds over the next 12 months, if not sooner. https://t.co/eP6JNL0QIt
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 18, 2022
Dunking on the pharma industry with @costplusdrugs.com, the lowest prices on meds anywhere. check it out !
Please help us spread the word. We WONT SPEND A NICKEL ON MARKETING. WE COMPLETELY RELY ON WORD OF MOUTH This allows us to price at such low prices. So all help is welcome from everyone and anyone ! https://t.co/yxVJ2mNJad
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 19, 2022
📉 Our prices just got lower, again!
90-count prices of…
– Amitriptyline reduced by 24-69%
– Spironolactone reduced by 28-46%
– Entecavir reduced by 20-33%See all 25 items we reduced in price in the image below 👇
Sign up now at https://t.co/DbEuAEIfAl to get started! pic.twitter.com/5KDlt2MEcN
— Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (@costplusdrugs) June 17, 2022
I’ve been a huge Mark Cuban fan since the early 2000s. He’s brash, he’s in your face, but he is often on the side of what I believe in.
I have not researched his new pharmacy, so I’ll be reading your comments later (I have to run to see a client) to see if there are any legitimate red flags. But on the surface…this looks promising.
Otherwise…this is an open thread
Monday Morning Open Thread: Prepping for Another Hectic Week
Baud
Don’t know much about it, but I heard it’s the real deal but the drugs available are pretty limited.
Elizabelle
And he’s not, as far as we know, building a rocket to outer space. Like Jose Andres, concerned about what is going on terrestrially.
Good to hear about this.
debbie
Thanks for the link, TaMara. None of my scripts are listed yet, but I’ll be watching!
Old School
Interesting. I’ll pass this along to some relatives and see if it can make a difference for them.
Lapassionara
I wonder which state legislature is going to be the first to make buying from his pharmacy illegal.
Tazj
@Old School: Me too.
Thanks for the information.
citizen dave
I checked it out one day for my couple of scrips. They are available, there were slight savings, but IIRC the documentation required, or just hassle of changing from my workplace’s provider, outweighed the potential savings. Still, I can see Cuban’s company as being a great thing in some situations–applaud him.
debbie
@Lapassionara:
Toss-up between TX and FL.
Lapassionara
@debbie: I was thinking Missouri, but TX and FL certainly in play.
Kineslaw
@Baud: They have added a lot of drugs since they first launched. They are still missing a lot, but worth checking the list periodically.
SFAW
People have sometimes characterized him as an asshole, or arrogant/loudmouth. Yes, and ….?
One med I’d like to see him make available for cheap is insulin. I don’t think Banting, Best, and Collip gave the rights away (in practical terms) so that pharma companies could bankrupt people who need it. [Thankfully, I do not, at least not yet.]
Kineslaw
@debbie: Mark Cuban has lived in Dallas for decades. He’s not a beloved figure, but I doubt many people in the Texas legislature want to declare war on him.
Parfigliano
My money is on SD Govt to outlaw this.
jonas
Like almost every other billionaire, Cuban has a galaxy-sized ego with a relentless penchant for self-promotion, but at least he sees here where there’s a real need in society and has tried to address it. So credit where credit is due.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Good for Cuban.
My mother was recently shopping around for new health insurance for my her and my father. She didn’t want to have to pay the $1500+/month anymore, so she looked for cheaper insurance. She ended up getting one of those awful Christian health care sharing ministries, because she was told certain types of health care they wouldn’t need, such as pregnancy care, wouldn’t be included in the cost for the plan. They got the insurance cards in the mail and it even says right on them that it’s not health insurance.
I’ve read that HCSMs don’t actually have to pay out for insurance claims. She admitted she didn’t do her due diligence and luckily was able to cancel it
These HCSMs should not be allowed to be as unregulated as they evidently are. A few have been prone to embezzlement as well by their founders
Doc Sardonic
I have found that with GoodRx I pay less buying all of my prescriptions out of pocket, than paying the copays with my prescription drug provider, OptumRx(United Healthcare). Think I will take a look.
ShadeTail
I’m a pharmacy technician, and I work for a mail order pharmacy that fulfills Mark Cuban prescriptions. So far, I’m not overly impressed with our side of this. I don’t think there’s anything bad here, but I haven’t noticed anything particularly different or special compared to any of the other pharmacies we fulfill for. It’s all just standard generics for various standard medications, at least so far.
Then again, I never get down into the weeds of the financing, so maybe his promises on that score will pan out. I guess we’ll see.
TxTiger
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Andrew Torrez of Opening Arguments podcast has been on a tear the past couple years against scam “healthcare” plans like Christian Health Share Ministries. This episode does a deep dive into them: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/opening-arguments/id1147092464?i=1000524597970
Another scam provider they went after is CrowdHealth. I just listened to this one and he really opened my eyes about how shady the business model is. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/opening-arguments/id1147092464?i=1000531893867
Ken
@Lapassionara: I suggest that, should two or more states pass the ban on the same day, the tie-breaker will be the number of times the word “freedom” appears in the legislation.
Titles count double, e.g. “The Freedom from Unregulated Pharmacies for All Citizens of South Dakota Freedom Act of 2022” would score 4.
Scott
@Doc Sardonic: I took my three generics (lisinipril, atorastatin, and metoprolol ER and compared costplusdrugs and goodrx (at both Walgreens and Costco). Much less than at Walgreens and a little less than at Costco. It pays to shop.
TaMara
Barbara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The number of complaints associated with this complete scam are rising dramatically. The biggest problem is that they use the same distribution network that insurers do but brokers who want a sale are not motivated to be completely truthful. Use the official navigator or exchange site so you don’t get scammed with these worthless pieces of junk. It makes me so angry that this exemption exists.
Barbara
@TaMara: Sorry to disagree. Health insurance is not a scam. It should be heavily regulated but very few people could ever afford the level of health care they want without it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m sorry your parents opted for that scammy so-called insurance. Hopefully they stay healthy until they can change providers and that they opt to change, even if the cost for real insurance is a little higher.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Barbara:
My mother wanted to get away from the Exchanges….
Part of me can’t blame her considering they make too much money to qualify for the subsidies. They used to have a group insurance plan for their small business many years ago that was cheaper
But yeah, I’ve read some not very nice things about HCSMs and a lot of people are pissed
@TxTiger:
Thanks, I’ll have to give those a listen.
VOR
@TxTiger: John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight did a segment on Health Care Sharing Ministries last year. http://youtu.be/oFetFqrVBNc
Jinchi
@Barbara: The scam is that health care is not universal.
Anonymous At Work
@ShadeTail: My read of all of this is that Cuban won’t be making money, won’t be saving a ton of money for people generally (since insurance might not help pay for it), but that this is a hedge against another PharmaBro buying up/out generics that are needed but not making enough at generic prices to have anyone with pockets defend it.
Am I right, am I missing something?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@O. Felix Culpa:
Thanks. There was a 30 day window to cancel, and my mother took that option, so I think they should be ok. My father has heart valve stents and needs certain anti-coagulation meds that he gets a incredibly good deal on with the current, real Insurance. With the HCSM? I doubt they’d pay one red cent for the meds, that cost a lot of money every 3 months otherwise
Jacel
I always remember seeing Mark Cuban (in 2004 during the GWB years) as a guest on John McEnroe’s short-lived CNBC talk show, which introduced me to John Fugelsang as co-host. At one point in a rambling but interesting conversation, Fugelsang tied together some earlier threads saying, “Three guys who are Mets fans and voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 talking on network television. What are the odds of that happening?”
O. Felix Culpa
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Good that your mom cancelled, especially with your dad’s medical needs. It’s unfortunate that real insurance is so expensive, even with the ACA, but I know people who have been badly burned by that “Christian” “insurance” scam.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
Insulin is a tricky one. The original patent for insulin just covers the naturally occurring protein. Similarly, the original humulin* patent is for the native sequence. Both of those patents have long since expired, so it’s theoretically possible to make generic/biosimilar version of bog-standard human insulin. But the versions that are in common use now have been engineered to have useful pharmicokinetics- either faster acting or longer lasting than natural insulin- and those things are legitimate purposes of the patent system.
The problem with insulin prices is that it looks like the major insulin producers are cooperating to raise prices, which really should be an anti-trust violation. Doctors could help with this by prescribing generic/biosimilar insulin to patients who don’t need the fancier versions and/or can’t afford them. But most doctors aren’t trained to think about drug prices when they make their prescribing decisions, so they tend not to do that.
*I have a special interest in the humulin patent because my employer developed it; my salary was paid at least in part through those patent royalties.
Salty Sam
Wow, how timely! Last week I went to get a refill on a ‘scrip that was ordered last December. Discovered that my Plan D provider changed that med to a different tier, and what cost me $4 in December was gonna cost me $400 today. WTF!?!
I just checked Cuban’s site- I can get it for $8. Nice!
WaterGirl
@Salty Sam: Wow.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT:
Why do unions still push defined benefit pensions so hard, even though the math doesn’t work out to support their payouts of benefits? Because of older members with decades of seniority? I can understand from that perspective, I suppose, but they’re not a good deal for younger workers
Multi-employer pension plans are especially on bad financial footing. I’ve read that many pension plans assume a US stock market return of 7-8% or so, which is very high compared to projections by Vanguard that say that future stock market returns are likely to be much lower over the next 10 years, at least.
Personally, I’d rather have a 401k then the DB pension plan I’m currently under, which probably won’t even be around in 40 years or so, and frankly isn’t that good to begin with. Money in a 401k will always be mine to keep and vesting requirements are normally only a year of service compared to my 5 years at my job. I have a TDF in a Roth IRA that I fund regularly, but it would be nice to have an employer match
Barbara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I can’t stress enough how scummy HCSMs are. They don’t guarantee any coverage for anything. It’s all “voluntary.” Whatever they are paying is too much.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Employers are usually on the hook for any shortfall in a defined benefit plan, and benefit plans are backed up by the federal government.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Religious insurance has been a scam for decades. It’s nothing new.
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
And THEE Tweet Goes On (@lacadri34) tweeted at 6:33 AM on Mon, Jun 20, 2022:
Since the January 6th coup is continuing, we have to be worried about ALL our institutions failing us. My eye is on policing. I firmly believe some of them will be aiding & abetting fascism on a level we haven’t seen since the 1950s/1960s Jim Crow south.
(https://twitter.com/lacadri34/status/1538847544138248194?t=4m4VJzGv0m8V1snksHpb6A&s=03)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Yes, the PBGC, which covers many pension funds, but the PBCG’s own finances aren’t great, especially for the MEPs. I don’t think the political will is going to be there to fix the shortfall when the federal, state, and local pension plans are going to probably need to be bailed out
Barbara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): DBs put the risk of investing on employers or employee organizations, who presumably can make better investment decisions. There are both good faith and cynical arguments for this preference, and a perusal of any record of insolvent pension funds would let you deduce what those arguments are.
Barbara
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Look at what happened in Detroit. There isn’t going to be a complete bail out for anyone.
rikyrah
Those who don’t want to see
War Criminal Elmo![]()
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(@WarCriminalElmo) tweeted at 8:48 PM on Sat, Jun 18, 2022:
The “Democrats have no bench post-Biden” argument never made a damn bit of sense to me. I can give you over half a dozen names just off the top of my head:
Kamala Harris
Pete Buttigieg
Gretchen Whitmer
Amy Klobuchar
Gavin Newsom
J.B. Pritzker
Jon Ossoff
Raphael Warnock
(https://twitter.com/WarCriminalElmo/status/1538337872406798336?t=pDSvj1DAFQ4L7VnUqLO4ag&s=03)
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The people most likely to have DB plans are unionized white working class people in industrial sectors. The political will will be there.
rikyrah
THIS!!
LadyGrey![]()
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(@TWLadyGrey) tweeted at 11:58 PM on Sat, Jun 18, 2022:
It’s insane to me that an entire social media movement needed to be built in order to fact check and uphold the accuracy of reporting by the political press.
We shouldn’t have to be the ones uncovering that “undecided voter” is the chair of the local GOP.
Where are the editors?
(https://twitter.com/TWLadyGrey/status/1538385698096562178?t=4suV3K9lxmXLmOqrnoEhRg&s=03)
rikyrah
HawaiiDelilah™ votes DEMOCRATIC BLUE (@HawaiiDelilah) tweeted at 8:50 PM on Thu, Jun 09, 2022:
Every single time you see a Republican claim this hearing is all “old news,” ask them if they sought a pardon for their involvement in the attempted coup. Ask. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. REPEATEDLY.
(https://twitter.com/HawaiiDelilah/status/1535076837130313729?t=ITE5cBZBla74KH2oBZlDfA&s=03)
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Thanks! for the detail and background info.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
Considering how utterly random healthcare prices and prescription prices are in the US, I really don’t know what doctors can do about being thoughtful about costs.
I’ve had a generic cost a $100/month for a 90 day supply at CVS. A few months later the same drug at the same dosage, at the same CVS with the same insurance, cost around $50 for the entire 90 days supply.
American healthcare needs standard pricing for services, supplies, and medication. It’s impossible to sort out anything on price the way things are.
Edit: My experience with pharmacies and insurance is they will use a generic formulation whenever possible. Doctor can write a prescription for CellCept, but the pharmacy will fill the generic Mycophenolic acid version because that’s what the insurance will pay for.
narya
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well . . . the 401k money is yours unless the stock market wipes it out. I’m planning my retirement (i.e., in the next year), and was planning to live on the 401k until I reach full SS age. Guess what: my 401k has lost 13% of its value this year, even with additions each month (me + employer match), which means I’ve lost even more. Everyone always says, “Oh, it’ll come back!” Yeah, I know, but unless it comes back SOON, I have to work longer, and I just . . . cannot.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I hope you’re right, but I have my doubts in a possible GOP-dominated US. Several Republicans already have criticized money being injected into MEPs through the ARP, for example. “Moral hazard”, and all that
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not everyone wants to be in the stock market. Military and other government pension recipients tend to like them.
satby
@Baud: Plus it’s a negotiated part of a total compensation package; usually unions have traded some cash in pocket for better pension and health plan coverage.
My measely pension never lost value, my 401k from my employer lost value dramatically twice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, it’s nice to see that you found something other than inflation to worry about.
sab
@rikyrah: Yes. And all this we are seeing in the Republicans isn’t anything new. It’s just new-ish that it is Republicans. They are just Dixiecrats under a different label, and that has roots as old as our country.
The Jim Crow South was government backed terrorism from top to bottom.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Barbara:
Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. I called up the Union Pension Fund office once out of curiosity about the formula to calculate benefits, and the woman was confused and simply tried to tell me I wasn’t vested yet; she didn’t get at first I wanted the formula. I got this vibe that she thought it was strange anyone would even ask
gene108
In the Dems need to message harder:
The replies seem mostly negative.
https://mobile.twitter.com/POTUS/status/1538888149807550465
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: a day ending in y
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not terribly worried about this because I’m taking action so as to not rely on a pension; if it’s there when I retire great, if not oh well
Jinchi
@O. Felix Culpa:
I assumed Health Care Sharing Ministries involved people personally sharing meds.
Baud
@gene108:
Never worry about replies.
satby
@Baud: Never worry about replies….
Because a lot of them are bots.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): So you are assuming the stock market will still exist and that your investments will make money? Okay….
Baud
@satby:
Elon was right!
satby
I do that, actually. Very surprised a number of the GQP haven’t blocked me.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I’m hoping so, anyway. It’s been around for the last 150+ years, so there’s historical precedent. The way I see it, index investing is the only game in town that has a chance to provide for a decent retirement, in combination with SS
James E Powell
@narya:
I’m in a similar position as you – planning on retiring in a year – but a bit worse. The collection of MFs & ETFs in my 403b is down ~24% YTD. I’m planning on retiring after one more year. Damn glad I’ve got my CalSTRS DB plan.
And I’m in a privileged position relative to the great mass of American workers who don’t have money left over at the end of the month to “regularly fund” anything.
Roger Moore
@Anonymous At Work:
This sounds about right. If everything goes well, people will think the whole thing is unimpressive, because its single biggest goal is to keep the other guys honest.
Scout211
Thank you TaMara for posting this. I sent the link to my sister and BIL. They have a part D drug plan but it still is expensive for the medications he has been taking for his blood cancer. Hopefully, this will help them. They have already found several grants that help patients cover expensive medications but now he is more stable so is on more of a maintenance medication. I saw it on the formulary, recently reduced in price. I hope this helps them.
Mr. Scout and I have Tricare-for-Life, a “wraparound” Medicare supplement plan that includes Part D. We know that we are very, very fortunate as our mail-order copays are low and our premiums are zero (!). I see my friends and family members with Medicare struggle with copayments and monthly premiums and every year try to figure out which part D plan will cover the medications that they need. Part D needs a giant overhaul IMHO.
Eolirin
@gene108:
If dems are going to have any success with messaging it’s not going to be via Twitter.
And negative (or positive) replies don’t mean much. Twitter replies are easily manipulated and prone to brigading.
The only real audience that something like that has that actually matters are journalists, and they’re going to ignore anything positive a Democrat says.
They’ll report on and thus signal boost any crazy thing that comes out of someone like Trump, but that’s about it. It’s not a useful way to try to build a narrative. FB is much better for that, but it requires having an external infrastructure like the network of fake news sites that launder Russian misinformation. We don’t have anything like that.
We need to do more grassroots work to try to counter our disadvantages in the broader media ecosystem. Local involvement and organized issues advocacy bypasses the gatekeeper issues. It’s just way harder to do at the scale we need to.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
Except, I wasn’t “worrying”. I’m sorry I expressed a bit of pessimism regarding DB pensions. That’s based on data. I was just discussing the subject
Leto
An update to the story I posted about a few days ago:
Rape victim who lost child custody to rapist claims he ALSO drugged and raped their minor daughter
Also this in the WaPo:
This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins. Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant 48 hours before the Texas abortion ban took effect
The ending is something I’m very familiar with as I knew a lot of young adults like this. I was their first supervisor, trying to get them situated and adjusted to a new life with the demands of both the military and a family.
Baud
@James E Powell:
It sucks, but a lot of that growth was based on cheap money and asset speculation. I hope in the year or two, we’ll have a stronger real economy.
Elizabelle
Texas. Amazingly well written WaPost story. Open to comments, interestingly.
This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins.
Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant 48 hours before the Texas abortion ban took effect
Recap (but article is very worth a click to read in full): Brooke’s mother took her for a free scan at what turned out to be an anti-abortion pregnancy crisis “counseling” center. She was actually 12 weeks along, and the biddies persuaded her to have the babies.
Now, she and the babies are living in her boyfriend’s bedroom, in his father’s home. The teenagers married so that she could obtain Air Force benefits (Billy reluctantly enlisted right out of high school; no other way to support his family).
Brooke and Billy love little Kendall and Olivia, but what a loss of potential future for these teenage parents.
J R in WV
@Salty Sam:
I used to take a generic called Librax for my Irritable Bowel Syndrome, was something like $8 for a 90-day supply. Then one day it was:
And obviously no longer on my insurance formulary of covered drugs. So now I take a less effective but still cheap drug. Because some trust-fund monster bought the rights to this commonly used generic medication and ran the price up 1000%. And I get to worry about shitting my pants while out in town.
satby
@James E Powell: Agreed. The beneficiary IRA (my mom’s converted 401k) is a conservative G&I fund, and it’s lost quite a bit over the last year. It’s my dire emergency fund only, and not that big anyway, but I’m glad I don’t have to depend on income from it.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
The big risk with defined benefit pensions is the administrator accepting overly optimistic predictions for how good their returns will be. They then underestimate how much funding the pension needs, leading to insolvency in the long term. This is an especially big risk during big bull markets, since it’s very tempting to assume they’ll continue indefinitely. My impression is this is the #1 cause of pension fund insolvency.
A related risk is a shrinking, aging company. They can get in a position where the amount they need to pay into the pension fund makes the company uncompetitive, exacerbating the problem with the company shrinking and having an aging workforce.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@narya:
@James E Powell:
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that for the two of you. Is it possible you could up your savings rates? Have access to a stable value fund?
Elizabelle
@Leto: I want to send some money to Brooke and Billy. Maybe a little amount each month.
I would bet a lot of readers feel the same. And we can find this young couple, given we’re in the internet age, and can contact the reporter, if nothing else.
But they and we don’t get the social safety net they would in Western Europe.
This country is being dragged backwards so hard. Doesn’t have to be this way.
Leto
@Elizabelle:
We posted this at the same time. This was our situation too. It worked out for us, but I’ve known way too many who weren’t as fortunate. Just from the article they’re probably going to be in the latter category. Which, as you said, is a shame because both had potentially brighter futures.
geg6
@narya:
I feel you and am in the same boat. Guess I have to work another 3-4 years. Which sucks.
Elizabelle
@Leto: You do see a lot of this with the military. Thank dog for it being a resource of last resort (of sorts) for very young families who find themselves in this position. The military actually has a LOT to offer (educational and vocational opportunities; healthcare, eventual retirement income if you make a career), but it is a hard job and not suited to everyone. And, it can be lethal.
Brooke has a lot of maturity; forced upon her, to be sure, but she is a dedicated young mom. And Billy is a very decent young man.
I am going to hope against hope for them, that they are the lucky ones, like you.
Dog Mom
@satby: So also ask if they did some fund raising on the big lie or are receiving money from sources that have done so?
Sister Golden Bear
@TaMara: FWIW, the replies to the “what’s a scam? health insurance” tweet have been people pointing out the absurdities of/problems with our current health insurance system, e.g. your eyes and teeth requiring separate insurance, same with mental health insurance, getting hit with unexpected “out of network” charges after surgeries because even though you make sure that your surgeon was in-network, other members of the surgical team weren’t (and you have no way of know this beforehand), etc
On a personal note, I’ll add that I personally had to pay for all my trans-related surgeries out of pocket, because my health insurer explicitly prohibited coverage of them. I’m extremely privileged to have been able to afford doing so, but even with doing the majority of work overseas, where the cost was half that of the States, I could’ve bought a house in some parts of the country, with the money I spent.
Leto
@Elizabelle: Something that the older officers didn’t like was the fact that people enlisted for benefits rather than patriotism. It’s something that rankled both Avalune and I because 1) you advertise for benefits all the time. It’s been the main selling point since the early 80s (be… all that you can be… in the Aaaaahhhhh-rmy, and John Travolta going through the line) 2) may be you’d have more patrotic goobers if they didn’t need to worry about healthcare, funding for college, job training… they couldn’t grok that and it was irritating to listen to. Then again I also understood why my people enlisted and would approach them from that angle.
My best job in the military was when I was teaching my job. The first day of each new class, I’d go around the room and get them to id themselves, where they’re from, and why they enlisted. Lot of different reasons, but some of the same factors with all of them. Education, healthcare, job training. Some kids didn’t know wtf they wanted to do with their lives and thought the military was a good place to figure it out. For some it was, others I thanked them for their service and sent them back. Like we’ve spoken about here before, a national jobs training program would be an amazing thing.
Elizabelle
@Leto: Yes, it would.
And support for young families. Available to ALL Americans, not means tested. All families have many of the same needs.
We could do so much better.
catclub
Until they declare bankruptcy.
Scout211
@Leto:
All good points. And Mr. Scout stayed in the reserves after active duty all the way through to retirement for the benefits.
See my comment at #68. We have one of the best if not the best Medicare supplement and Part D plan available in the US today. Premiums paid 100% by the government (at least so far . . . ).
Kelly
@catclub: I have friends that worked for a company that went bankrupt and their pensions were taken over by the federal pension guarantee program. Well paid IT guys. Pensions due from the company were roughly twice the maximum the fed program would pay and they had to wait an additional 10 years to collect. The really rotten part was the company screwed them by splitting the company into three new companies and shoved all these 20 to 30 year employees into a hollowed out, doomed shell. Put the youngsters in two corps with the viable assets. Completely legal. Original corp was Consolidated Freightways.
gene108
@Eolirin:
This is a preview of a BBC piece about how Trump’s campaign successfully used digital media, especially Facebook, to bombard like voters with advertisements. Cambridge Analytica scoured publicly available information for available data and had programs to match things like the car a person drives as to whether they’d possibly vote for Trump. Trump’s campaign also paid the social media companies millions, like Google and Facebook. They got white glove treatment from them, especially Facebook, who was eager to give Trump’s campaign what they wanted.
I think this sort of targeted social media campaign is how Republicans are pealing off Hispanic voters in Texas, from what I’ve read.
Democrats don’t have any kind of comparable data mining operation.
The video is at the Twitter link.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bbcstories/status/897518270349058049
Soprano2
@Roger Moore: My husband had to be insistent with his doctor about getting the much cheaper vials rather than the pens. When the pens got to over $300/mo, he switched. Still has a pen for the long-acting insulin, but it’s much cheaper because you use less.
Soprano2
@Baud: I have a LAGERS pension through the city. Missouri’s fund is one of the best-run in the county because they don’t allow anyone to skip making payments. It’ll be there for everyone who has it.
Too many people rob 401K’s for house down payments and college payments, leaving little for retirement. They’re better than nothing, but I’m not a big fan.
TaMara
@Barbara: Many people with health insurance still go bankrupt because it is a for-profit scam that has high deductibles and only pays a percentage of very expensive medical costs.
JCJ
@Roger Moore: Thank you for providing this information. I have not prescribed insulin for over 30 years, but even then there were different durations of action (short and long acting). Even with that many people had to do multiple injections per day. Patient compliance was (and I assume still is) a huge problem. Better glucose control will help prevent blindness and amputations. On the other hand not being able to afford insulin will lead to the worst outcomes.
Do you work for Genentech?
Roger Moore
@JCJ:
City of Hope. We had the actual patent on humulin, but Genentech had an exclusive licensing agreement. I wasn’t around at the time, but my understanding is that Genentech had the idea and the money, but City of Hope had the technical wherewithal to make the artificial genes to express insulin. Genentech agreed to pay for the people at City of Hope to do the development work in exchange for an exclusive right to the patents if anything came from it.
Elizabelle
@Leto: I am thinking Brooke should get her GED as soon as she’s able to (4 hours sleep a night with tiny twin daughters).
And, once the daughters are weaned: perhaps Brooke should join the Air Force as well, or instead. Maybe Billy could be the skateboarding stay at home dad.
And I hope they have family and friends who will care for the twins occasionally.
Brooke might be the better fit for the USAF, or any military service. She was already doing well on her real estate licensing courses.
Elizabelle
Or, for Brooke, a military-adjacent or other government job. I think it was courageous of her and Billy to allow the WaPost reporter access, and hope that the attention that comes their way brings them opportunities as well.
The Lodger
@Kelly: … which begat XPO Logistics, former evil lair of Louis DeJoy. It’s amazing how some people keep showing up at the bottom of the barrel, isn’t it?
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Did you get the email I sent you?
OT: Second in my garden series
Hyacinth
raven
@Elizabelle: She won’t get in the Air Force with a GED unless she does at least a year of post-secondary.
James E Powell
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Increasing my savings rate one year before retirement isn’t going to have much impact. The money I’m talking about in MFs & ETFs is only about a third of my total.
I’m not too worried because I’m fairly confident stocks will come back given time and I’m not depending on it for income because – fortunately – I’ve got my defined benefit plan.
Elizabelle
@raven: Is that an additional requirement for GED holders?
For all high school grads? (Although sounds like Billy the husband started training after HS graduation).
Is the Air Force more selective than other military services, for enlisted?
Just curious. Wondering if the Army would take a young woman with a GED outright. I truly don’t know how it works …
Also, pats to Artie.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Elizabelle: Working as a military spouse is sometimes difficult, many military members get transferred every few years, and while there are jobs in the commissary and exchange and other places on base if you have 2 babies that is a lot in child care costs. Some military bases have good childcare centers on base(usually with waiting lists), some have good home daycare programs (military spouses who get certified to care for a couple of children. That all still costs.
My husband and I were dual military, this came with the additional issue of having local and long term plans for if we both got deployed at the same time.
Brooke might do better finding a work from home job and perhaps another parent who could trade off a couple of hours a day of child care. (working from home with 2 infants or even 1 infant is difficult to impossible for a lot of people)
Elizabelle
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Thank you. I am really curious about what options present for this young couple.
What an interesting life, to have been dual military. You have seen some things. You are a very adaptable couple.
raven
@Elizabelle: Recruitment criteria shifts with the needs of the services and right now I suspect they are very choosy. They did a number of studies to determine what level of educational achievement in enlistees were most likely to complete their enlistments and traditional high school grads were twice as likely to complete as GED’s. It was easy for services to use that as a basis but, in answer to your question about the Air Force (and the Navy), there criteria is much more stringent than the Army of the Corps. I’m sure that Leto would tell you that any advancement to the NCO ranks almost always requires and undergraduate degree. Again, criteria shift according to needs. I got my GED while in Korea but that was in 1967 during Project 100,000 when they’d take anyone with a pulse into the Army and Corps
raven
@Elizabelle: In the GED world we always said it was necessary but not sufficient. That is except for those who were trying to convince folks to pursue one, then it was framed as life changing. God, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since I did this work on GED outcomes!
Elizabelle
@raven: thank you, raven. Most appreciated.
raven
@Elizabelle: My pleasure, it’s the old joke about putting a $20 bill in your dissertation in the university library and going back in 20 years. Its would still be there because no one would ever open it!
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: My FIL had retired from Gould (pumps and such) as a technical editor. The DB pension went away during the bankruptcy restructuring. If he hadn’t had money in mutual funds left to him my his late wife, he would have been completely screwed.
Ella in New Mexico
All of those drugs have been generic forever and should literally cost pennies a day.Why insurance companies–or the drug companies or pharmacies— are charging their patients high co-pays for them is inexplicable and were the whole country not under attack would in another time be investigated as price fixing by government agencies.
But good for Mark Cuban, this is important.
Xavier
@Leto: a national job guarantee would be best, for many reasons, not the least of which is the best job training is a job.