WTF-Beta

@wtg
Why do you say Putin's "winning on all fronts" if the Europeans are stepping up to help Ukraine?

Nut

(Bernard: I don't get it - "Frank")

I'm unhappy to see Massachusetts is one of only three states where CVS won't dispense the vaccine with or without a script. (I wonder why. Same question re Florida with all their retirees.) One son who lives in MA is working as a paramedic (exposure!).
I hope other pharmacies there will fill scripts.

SK:
If you have a portal for out of office questions for your provider, might that be a good alternative to such a question in a meeting?

Nevermind.
I see wtg already asked about this option, and you looked into it.
(Your obligatory PCP change sounds like a humongous nuisance.)

Fairies

Grey

@ Daniel

"It's complicated". Has to do with it's being a state's issue, with many separate arrangements which amount to significantly lower medication prices through Medicaid.

However, you're right strictly speaking. Those mechanisms aren't negotiations per se on a broad federal level.
(quote from Perplexity)

WHAT?
I can't cut and paste it - must be some kind of copyright limitation.

Here's a link.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/can-medicaid-negotiate-medicat-6pPD5c4dTwyxm6MOW4aaFg

Today's NYTimes reports Trump's intention to impose tariffs on meds manufactured overseas (almost all of them, considering they're mostly manufactured - piecemeal - in several countries apiece).

As someone who takes a fair number of prescriptions (the most expensive ones being ordered from Canada), that made my heart sink.

But, hey! What IS going on? Does anyone besides me remember his announcing not long ago that he was going to sock it to Big Pharma for charging Americans multiples of the prices other countries charge for the same medications? (Why? Because other countries are able to put pressure on American companies by forced negotiations, so their citizens can get them at a mere fraction of what we pay). Old news, but fabulous that Trump was finally going to make it right.

I cheered (even my sons sent me happy "about time" messages) - and indeed it would have been. (I guess everyone knows how we're gouged in med prices, rationalized as needed to pay for R&D because our insurance companies aren't allowed to negotiate price so patients everywhere would divide that expense. (Except - for some reason - MEDICAID is allowed to negotiate.).
It's been a scandal forever and a day.

Or did I hallucinate that whole make-it-right pronouncement??

Because it doesn't jibe with this newest announcement about imposing tariffs on medications coming from overseas. Or can both policies somehow go together?

I guess it's laughable to question Trump's flip flopping on an issue, but it really DID seem that (for once) a policy change benefiting consumers fit in with his "America First" dogma.

Anybody else notice this and have comments?

shtick

Eccentricity

Solve

Trump

Anaconda

[wtg: I know mine is pathetic, but even though I used the dictionary, I don't know what yours means. Is there a pencil company with that means?]

And much belated, Hi back to Steve!

Burp

Addendum:
Unless I missed it, there's no HOA with fees (excellent), and the only things I'd really wonder about is quality of insulation. (Also history of utility costs - precisely because of the space and number of egresses and windows. )

Wonder too, come to think of it, how they are so sure of worsening air quality. Is something industrial in the works?

Would have been super to only have to move half a mile!

(Oh, no! My fears have come true - confusion of using this site. How can I post this?)

Looks so spacious and lots of storage. Also I love its having a potential live-in's apartment in the basement for home help if needed.

If it's near walkable amenities that's very important too! Makes up for the reduced exercise one gets (without really realizing it) from having stairs. (I'm convinced that makes an important difference, though, yes, the day is apt to come when they would be too dangerous.)

I looked for the ratings on various risks it's susceptible to and that was pretty much perfect! Only flaw is they anticipate worsening air quality.

What a shame!
And accidents are always kind of traumatic even if no serious damage or injury occurs.
Brand new!

@wtg Got it, and thanks.

There's a little tech problem at my end, which may make it impossible to act on my "membership", though. It so, it may at the very least stem from my (long abominable) Yahoo email app. It keeps flipping from one format to another each one with its own liabilities. (For example, some new Yahoo iteration, only allows 25 entries in the Inbox and others, however many have arrived,)

Periodically, though, it offers me the opportunity to switch to the "standard" Yahoo format (as if I ever switched away!), and when I accept, I get back what appear to be unlimited entries again, Inbox and other.

(It also refused to let me get to the calendar - on which I REALLY depend -and also simultaneously refused to let me reach my contacts list on which I also depend. Just adding these examples of uncontrollable glitches, as part of what has really turned into a Yahoo kvetch. HATE YAHOO!)

I know, I know, I should switch to Gmail and indeed I have a gmail account, but as yet I haven't. found a way to port all my thousands of saved old Yahoo emails (inbox, draft, send) which I've been using as a filing system. That is, to the extent it counts since its Search engine scarcely ever works.

(If I could use WORD efficiently for fiiing, I'd never have gotten into this ghastly dependence on Yahoo. Guess I should take some kind of tutorial at our local Business School).

At any rate, thanks to wtg I'm here too, but I can never be certain of being reachable or able to reach out. (Wtg. if I vanish for months, please drop me an email so I can rejoin the crowd, in case Yahoo has flummoxed me again.)

And tragedy.
(Like what Trump and Vance did to Zelensky today)

Wondering with measureless trepidation, how many more on this scale (or - worse? ), we have ahead of us.

In case you missed reading about her in the NYT, an inspiring and encouraging profile - in fact, what I'd call a true profile in courage.

I'm especially impressed by her insistence on taking responsibility.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/politics/pamela-hemphill-trump-jan-6-pardon-rejection.html