Outsourcing our $$ to Canada

C

centerfire

New member
I wasn't sure if this should be posted here or in the club house, I'll try this and trust the moderators to put it in the right place.
I just received an e-letter from the governor of Wisconsin containing a link to buy drugs from Canada. Talk about outsourcing money and jobs across the border. On top of objecting to my tax monies being used to promote the outflow of jobs and American dollars to another country, I also object to his apparent total disregard to a letter sent to him from the Food and Drug Administration warning about the possible health hazards associated with his plan. His attitude seems to be - heck with the electorates health, let’s give the appearance of doing something. We want their votes.
I guess you can’t expect much more than that from someone who has recently vetoed a bill that would have prevented lawsuits against restaurants by obese people because it’s the restaurant’s fault that they are overweight. He also vetoed a right to carry bill that surveys have shown something like 87% of the citizens of Wisconsin were in favor of: Gee, aren’t we lucky that he thinks he knows what’s better for us than we do.
He also ignores the fact that there are pharmacies in this country that specialize in generic drugs and maintenance prescriptions. Their prices for these drugs are lower than the same thing coming from Canada and they ship for free. It’s my understanding that Canadian pharmacies average $10.00 per prescription just for shipping charges.
Although I live in Wisconsin, I get my medication from a cash and carry pharmacy in MN. Their prices have made it possible for me to drop the major drug policy on my health insurance and to put $1000 a year in my pocket after my prescription costs have been deducted from that saving.
The governor would have been on the right track if he had used my tax money to point people to these pharmacies right here in the good old U.S.A.
 
I agree but only partially. My diabetic and high blood pressure medications are out of sight. I checked into the Canadian pharmacies and found "NO" great bargains. The FDA warnings about Canadian drugs are un-founded. Have you, I or anyone else heard of any Canadians dying as a result of their medications? Understand something very important that goes on in this country. The FDA is in the back pocket of the pharmaceutical companies. FDA is purported to be the watchdog over our drug industry. But yet they approved Crestor, Baycol among many other drugs only recall them later.
There's no control over the cost. In Canada, the government set the prices. Here, they are set by drug companies. They hold patents on the formula, there can be no competition until the patent is up. When that happens the generics come out. Then the next step is to patent the same drug under different name with an improvement over the earlier one. They charge what the traffic can bear. It victimizes old people and those with permanent diseases. The Medicare Prescription bill recently passed is the biggest farce by far.
The average normal person who has no life threatening disease who spends a few hundred bucks a year saves nothing. One with a few thousand dollars in medicine might save a couple of bucks. Us retired folks who busted our asses our entire lives providing the government with taxable incomes are screwed the most. Most so when one has an incurable disease. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
The FDA is in the back pocket of the pharmaceutical companies.
Click to expand...
And that's how they stay focused on the prime target, the wallets in our back pockets! The drug companies are a lot like insurance companies. They spend a lot of research to make sure that they take in the most money for the least risk while "helping" us out. Why focus on a cure when a "drug" offers temporary, profitable and controlled relief?

They complain that the R & D cost of a new product is what drives the cost up so much. Translated, it means that they must keep profit margins up to be desirable for investors. Sooo, their research must quickly find economic "sweet spots". Blast a shotgun 10 times and if one bead makes contact, cah-ching $$$$$$, and make the consumer pay for every single BB that did not hit. Does this mean that the single hit was the best for a one shot kill? That is not what this "research" was about. It is designed to find the best shot for the money.

Just think about where we would be if all of our shooting decisions were based on achieving the lowest cost per shot ratio. Never mind hitting what we aim at, terminal energy or collateral damage. Would it be cheaper for us to wear more body armor and make cheaper barrels? Ya know, three shots then , install another barrel. That's the Pharmo's and FDA today. They really don't give a rats@*# about serving the needs of the American people.
 
What's that? A company setting the price for its own product based on what the market will bear? How terrible! I don't mean to downplay the huge burden born by somebody with several continuous prescriptions to fill, but your government setting the price is probably a poor answer. If it was the answer then why don't you find a huge savings in the Canadian pharmacies? Companies pursue profit, that's what they do, and when they are allowed to do that they come up with great stuff to make our lives better and longer because they know we will pay for it. If you can't make some jack on a new drug, then why would you invest in R&D? Are the drug companies profits huge compared to other large industries?
 
Frankie B. If your meds can be had in generic form have you tried the type of pharmacy that I use. On name brand drugs their competitively priced but on generics (their specialty) they are really inexpensive. I know that when my daughter filled a prescription for my grandson her insurance co-pay would have been $16.00, (cheap enough) but she filled it at the place I use and her cash price was $4.95. I'm retired and fortunately I'm only on two maintenance meds. I know of a lady that switched from her regular pharmacy to this one. She had two name brand and eight generic prescriptions. I think she paid a couple bucks more for the name brands but the generics were so much less in total she saved something like $150.00 per month. I would be a lot happier with our governor if he would have spent my tax dollar to point to places where there are real savings like this, within this country rather than send our $$ elsware.
 
Good for you Dinger 33. You are lucky, but I am curious. What percentage of your income gets paid to your government in taxes of one kind or another?
 
Doyles a dink,oh I forgot he's a dem,it figures.Starliterancher your right on the money with that one.but dinger33,how happy can you be your country has some of the strictest gun control in n.america.Was that part of the deal? :rolleyes:
 
Hi Weedwacker and all.
Please note: I never stated our government should set the price. If that were to happen the program would end up convoluted like most other programs they administer. Generics are of course are an alternate answer only when the original patents are up. But then again one will not save 90%. You may expect as much as 25%. When you have a job like I had before retirement, my medical plan and prescription plans were excellent. Now I speak for most retired folks on social security. When a person on social security must spend half of their retirement on pills. That stinks. The government doesn't give a rap about the very people who worked their ass off providing taxable income to be squandered by the government. As Bill O'Reilly puts it, "who's looking out for you?"
It's even worse in many southern states like Florida where wage and salary are so low. When you can retire you can't. If you lived and worked your life down here, one can't live on social security alone down here. Most people down here can't even afford to have their teeth fixed. You will not have enough money left over to reload, target shoot and hunt yotes.
 
one can't live on social security alone down here.

That was never the purpose of SS anyway. Anyone who expects to live on nothing but SS benefits either has un-realistic expectation of the amount of benefits, or doesn't expect to do much living.
 
What was the original intent of social security? As I have heard, and I'm only asking, aren't there more baby boomers retiring with fewer to take their place putting less into SS? Wouldn't that mean less SS per post baby boomer, and eventually none?
 
It was supposed to be one leg of your retirement:

Social security, private pension and personal savings making up the 3.

I'm pretty pragmatic about SS. I figure if I ever draw a buck out of it I'll count my blessings, because the system can not be sustained as it presently functions and the politicians have so far refused to make any meaningful changes to it.

Mostly, I just look at how much they take out of me every year and kiss it goodbye.
 
As to your other question, yes. That's the problem, it's a fundamental one of population dynamics, compounded by our extended life spans that we're enjoying now.

When it was implemented, there were about 15 workers paying in for every person who retired and drew benefits. That, plus the fact that most people died by age 68 or so, meant the the system for the most part could handle the burden.

Now, we have maybe 3 people working for every beneficiary. That's right now, 20 Mar 2004. We're well on the way to hitting a 2 to 1 ratio, that is only a few years away. I forget the exact year that is going to happen, I think it's 2010, but could be wrong. It's not very far in the future.

Think about that. If one person draws $12,000 per year, a lousy grand a month, that's costing each younger worker a bit over $4,000 now. In just a few years it'll be an even $6,000 each.

And that assumes that's what the benefit is and that it won't increase.

We now both live longer and have fewer children. So we retire at 65 or so, and live on avg until well into our 70's. I think it's now 74 or so for men and 78 or 79 for women.

SS is a Ponzi scheme, pure and simple. It is paid out each year by the taxes confiscated. What we pay in is not invested, it earns no return, it buys no equity. It is simply a wealth transfer scheme that takes money from people who work and pays it out to people who no longer do. If anyone in the private sector did this they would be prosecuted under federal law and sent to a federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison for it, but somehow because the govt is doing it it's supposed to be a good thing.

It needs to be privatized. Our retirement money should be invested, in personal accounts that we own and politicians can't take away. Even a lousy return would beat what we get fromm SS, and because it's ours, any unused funds at our death would be left to our survivors, not merely absorbed into the system and lost to the family.

Black men in particular get hosed by this deal. Statistically, they die younger and either get very little benefits before their deaths, or they die before retiring and get zero. If it was privatized at least their wives or children would get what they worked so hard for.
 
When SS was started,the government figured out what the normal or average age of death was and set the retirement age above that,they where gambling with your life and your money, that they never intended to pay back in the first place.Now the cards have folded and lady luck has givin them yhe bad eye.I feel our only choice is to privatize ss,because all the government is going to do is throw it away in another one of their crapshoots.We are all just pawns in this game. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
One example of my pharmacies prices that I happen to see in a news article is Ranitidine which is the generic equivalent of Zantac. The price for 90 tablets (150mg) was $7.99 with no charge for mailing. How does that compare with what is available to you where you shop for meds?
 
yes we do pay alot in taxes! we all do no matter what country we live in! as the saying goes there will always be death and taxes. we pay alot but im sure it equals or better then the insurance you all have to pay in the states.if your lucky your place of work pays for it. from what i understand from what my buddies tell me that live in various states. still we pay alot in taxes but a friend of mine has never had kids cause where he lives he said he cant afford the costs to the trips to the docters and the delivery bill. whew i have 2 children so ill pay the tax.
 
oh and hey guys sorry no matter what country you live in our govts should be keeping tax dollars and jobs within our own countries
 
Hi Stu,
Your comment
That was never the purpose of SS anyway. Anyone who expects to live on nothing but SS benefits either has un-realistic expectation of the amount of benefits, or doesn't expect to do much living.
Click to expand...
A large percentage of older people here in Florida
get an SS check betwwen 300 and $600/month.
Where ever they did work, the companies they worked for had the poorest of benefits. Even with 401K and virtually non existant pension plans, they can't make it. That's why there are so many mobile homes and trailer parks. Don't you think they would rather live in a family residence? Look what happened when hurricane Andrew ripped through Florida. Holmstead AirForce
Base was destroyed and subsequently closed.
Thousands of those folks living in trailers and mobile homes were now without homes. The Mobile home areas looked like they were hit with an atom bomb. Then guess what happens next? The insurance companies are pulling out of Florida because of the risks. (Plus the sink holes in various areas I may add) To get insurance our Gov. Bush created the Citizens Insurance program. It replaced the old JUA if you heard of it. In 3 years my home owners insurance tripled as well most others. The original purpose of SS was to reward the retirees. Social Security, by the way is not bust. The government takes the surplus and squanders it on the liberal programs and gives to those people who don't want to work for it. Fifty percent of the people who work are paying for the other fifty percent who don't want to work. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
The most liberal states in this nation that want gun control are the same that maintain the highest amount of poverty and drug problems. That's the reason they also have the highest crime rates. WOW! Did I start his topic /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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