In the last several months we’ve all heard or read about the confusion of Medicare Part D. The media has made it appear as though it is impossible for a Medicare patient to find drug coverage with the new Part D benefit.

After months of reading about what a train wreck Part D was, I became somewhat cynical about the media’s coverage of Medicare related issues. The real story wasn’t being told: how the pharmacies are being affected.
What the media wasn’t telling everyone, was that their local pharmacists were going through hell trying to make this new Medicare plan work.
Local pharmacists were doling out medications to people who weren’t paying, and due to all of the confusion at the other end, the pharmacists themselves weren’t being reimbursed in a timely manner from the Part D providers. Not only that, but the pharmacist doesn’t always know clearly what the provider is going to pay him/her for the drug that they just handed out.
Keep in mind that we’re talking about small locally owned, independent pharmacies. I’m not sure how many of you own, or have owned businesses, but I’m sure you can all understand how hard it would be to stay in business when you’ve given most of your inventory away without any payment.
One local pharmacist told me shortly after the onset of the Part D coverage, that he had given out over $30,000.00 in medications, without yet receiving even a penny from any of the providers. They make the process of being reimbursed complicated enough, that it takes forever and a day for the pharmacist to get anything back. The bottom line is: a pharmacist can’t stock the shelves with medicine if he doesn’t have any money to buy it from the manufacturer.

With the very real possibility of all the small pharmacies closing down due to Medicare Part D coverage, some politicians are finally making a move to level the playing field.

Earlier this week a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to CMS encouraging some changes in how things are run. The letter urges CMS to better regulate the providers of Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage, demanding that they make clear up front their reimbursement of the medications they cover. The letter also urges them to make possible EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) to the pharmacists selling the medications, making reimbursement that much faster. The letter also encourages CMS to insist that providers update the wholesale drug lists daily, to make it easier for the pharmacists.

From the letter:

“We strongly encourage the agency to examine PDP activities that may undermine beneficiaries’ access and to consider the suggestions we offer to promote strong and continued participation of local, community pharmacies in the Medicare prescription drug plan,”

I think this might be a step in the right direction. I for one value my local pharmacy, and would like to see it possible for him to stay in business through all of this. As more and more insurance companies dump their prescription coverage for any of their members who qualify for Medicare, there will be more and more patients joining Part D coverage. This means more medicine that the independent pharmacist is selling at a reduced profit margin.
I’m torn between wanting to support the local guy, and my inability to pay for all of my necessary medications. Hopefully we can find some in between state that will work - and this letter may be a starting point for creating that.
Time will tell.

From a story seen on digg

“In a trendy nightclub in New York City, the bartender tells guests they can only be served bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny half-pint container. One outraged clubber is
stopped by the restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from the
tap. “You can’t do that,” says the attendant. “New York’s tap water isn’t
safe.”

Interesting read - apparently the bottled water industry is not held to a very high standard. Bottled water is controlled by the FDA, whereas our tap water is held to the EPA’s higher standards.
Regardless - Colorado’s tap water has got to be better than what this “clubber” was going to get in NYC! *grin*
The only bottled water I really drink here is from Eldorado Springs, which is natural Colorado spring water anyway.

I’ve always thought it was odd to pay for bottled water when fresh tap water was at hand.
After reading this article I think I will move beyond thinking it odd, and progress to pointing and laughing.

Interesting article floating around the renal community.

Blood Type No Longer Matters?

According to this article a “new procedure” helps to remove harmful antibodies pre and post transplant in the recipient. I remember reading something about this being accomplished via plasmapheresis several months ago, but I’m not sure if this is the same thing or not. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really say.

“There may still be some people whose antibody levels are so high that we can’t overcome them,” he said.

“But for the majority of people who have a donor of the wrong blood group, this will open up a new opportunity.”

The blood filtering treatment was used in the weeks before and after the transplant.

Very interesting, I can’t wait to see how this develops in coming months.
Go Aussies!

Stolen Sidekick is an Internet Hit

About three weeks ago a Motorola Sidekick was left in an NYC cab.
I’m sure this happens all the time. I’m sure that sometimes, someone with character makes an effort to return the phone. Most times however, I’m sure that the person who finds it considers it their lucky day, and just keeps it.
Unfortunately for the “Corona Crew”, the phone they stole belonged to someone with a bit of tech savvy. Within hours drama ensued with thousands of hits generated between the story being dug, and being anointed by Slashdot.

So some of us have been following the drama - and finally it comes to a conclusion. The phone has been returned, and the correct people have been punished.
Awesome

Why do people feel that they have the right to other people’s property? This entitlement attitude always baffles me. The idea that if someone left something somewhere, it somehow no longer belongs to them, and it is fair game.
With this logic, shouldn’t burglary be legal as long as the residents aren’t at home and currently handling the property?

What really baffles me with all of this though, is why people have sidekicks in the first place?

Reading boingboing this morning, I ran across an article about Al Gore’s new “incredible” documentary titled An Inconvenient Truth. The boingboing article was typical boingboing – an interesting read that blatantly pushed an agenda. I don’t have a problem with this, as I think it’s virtually impossible for any writer to write something true to their own experience without including some of their own perception of that experience. I just have a problem when a journalist makes no attempt to show the other side of a piece, and tries to deny their own bias, by labeling their work “objective”.
Anyway, boingboing is hardly objective, nor does it try to label itself as such (to my knowledge) – so again, I have no problem with the *cough* subtle political agenda.

The review of Al Gore’s movie was however quite interesting. It tackles the issue of global warming in a very urgent way, giving the impression that we are all going to see a Hollywood-inspired doomsday scenario in the next ten years if we don’t change our ways.

Talk about an an Inconvenient Truth …..

While it’s hard to find “good” science regarding virtually anything these days, there is some pretty concrete evidence that temperatures are rising. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek - but it’s true, right now it appears temperatures are rising. So what? How is this proving a scientific hypothesis? And where does this become something that we as humans try to singlehandedly stop?
We’ve all heard of the “greenhouse effect” - wherein certain gases are being released into our atmosphere that in turn trap the sun’s heat causing a perpetually rising temperature. The “big one” seems to be CO2, which most of you will know as Carbon Dioxide. It’s what we exhale with each breath. It’s also what plants and trees need in order to produce live-giving oxygen for us. Having this atmosphere is what makes this planet inhabitable.

It appears though, that man is responsible for very little CO2 in the atmosphere.
Figures vary a bit, but looking at the total output of CO2 in the atmosphere, anthropogenic CO2 (carbon-dioxide coming from humans and their activities) makes up only about 0.28%. That’s right, 97% of greenhouse-causing CO2 in the atmosphere is due to natural causes. Some large contributors include water vapor from oceans, volcanic activity, and decaying plant and animal life.
What’s true then?
It is definitely true that temperatures and CO2 levels have been on the rise. Not for the last 30 years, but for the last 18000! Yes, this will culminate in another ice-age making the planet uninhabitable for the most part. Glaciers and arid deserts, that’s it. Very few forests, and very little plant (or animal) life. And this global cooling will not get better quickly, as the thickening ice at the South Pole will reflect much of the sun’s energy back out into space, and perpetuate the cooling problem. You can thank continental drift for this, because it’s deposit of Antarctica at the pole is what enables such a large polar ice cap to form (it would not become so thick over open water).

The doomsday scenarios are largely possible, nae, inevitable.

Get ready for this – this might be the warmest the earth’s been in a hundred years, but not the hottest period ever.
The hottest period in human existence was the Holocene Maximum. It occurred between 7500 and 4000 years ago. Well before humans started polluting via fossil-fuels. After this period of warming was another cooling period, followed by another warming period (the Medieval Warm Period), and finally the “Little Ice Age” beginning around 1400 AD.

Another interesting fact you won’t read in any Green Peace literature is that CO2 levels seem to rise and fall correspondingly with solar activity. So, either the sun’s energy affects CO2 levels, or CO2 levels affect the sun’s output (I think not).
Along with these astronomical effects, there are the earth’s own cyclical variations in orbit and angle which affect the atmosphere’s ability to hold heat greatly.

Yes the globe is warming, but looking at the geologic data it appears that humankind has very little to do with the equation.

Why then are we made to be so worried about global warming?
Certainly I feel personally that as stewards of this planet we should treat it well. So I’m not advocating for massive pollution.

So why are certain people shoving this false idea down our throats that our consumption (and expulsion) of fossil-fuels is bringing about total global climatic change?
I found an interesting quote on this treasure-trove of information:

“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory)
(in an interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)

Whoa - Any other scientists backing up the idea that climate change is due mostly to things outside of human’s influence?

Yes

Awesome, so some pretty conrete science indicates that the Earth has its own agenda with regards to weather - and we still want to teach our kids that they’re part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
As though there is some solution!