Pfizer start new program providing some medicines free to recen...

[Brian]

Shouldn't they be giving away Oxycotin or Valium....I mean don't we want the laid-off to be happy instead of hard-up?

[Josey]

Why not offer a pint of gin a day to the recently uninsured, jobless Americans? It's the least that the Federal Government could do since they plied billions on their banking buddies.

[Spector]

I am very very proud of this development -- proud knowing that the Obama administration and his Republican colleagues who are working on the health care reform portfolio are pushing all the right buttons. The pharmaceutical and the private, for-profit insurance carriers are absolutely terrified at the prospect of changes to the current system and a public plan health insurance option that they would resort to throwing sops like this to the public to generate goodwill.

Sad, how many millions of Americans over the years have been bankrupted by health care costs or even died because they couldn't even afford certain prescriptions -- even people who actually have private insurance. They sure could have used this free prescription plan....

Keep up the good work guys! This country needs universal health care and we need it now!

[NoWay]

I can't wait to lose my job. I'd do much better. Right now my co-pay for Rx is $10 (that's more than free), I'm still out of pocket my mortgage every month, and I'm exhausted because I'm doing the workload of three since two colleagues were laid off in February.

I love it when America comes together to help one another and I pray the economy improves - but seriously - at what point is the free ride a little TOO MUCH?

[Wayne_IL]

While I agree that Viagra makes little sense, nicotine patches do. Think about it, someone who recently lost their job will be under stress, and stress causes many smokers to increase their habit. Having access to free nicotine patches could reduce the amount of money a jobless person spends on cigaretes, which could help improve their heath.

Moose wrote:

Seriously, it's a nice idea if it were meds for life-threatening issues (meds for diabetes or heart conditions or HPB), but nicotine patches? Viagra? Wouldn't be better if BHO just had congress pass a bill to legalize pot ,,, that way, we could all just chill and laugh our way thru the recession ,,, and it would help those receiving chemo and who have cataracts to boot!

[True Dat]

Rationalthoughtforachange wrote:

<quoted text>
By "cheaper alternatives" it sounds like your gas tank isn't the only orifice near the trunk getting filled up.

Wow, you pwnd her good!

[Dena]

Of course they can give away these meds that are going to expire anyway. If you read the article you notice that they've been jacking up their prices to cover the fact that more and more people are not filling their prescriptions because they can't afford it.

They want to placate the large group of people who are currently losing insurance because of the down turn in the economy. The truth is that a large number of citizens (self-employed and people without union benefits) were uninsured already. And MOST of those with insurance are under-insured and won't know it until it is too late and they are labeled with a "preexisting condition."

This is an attempt to derail health care reform. If a large enough group of citizens realize our precarious situation in regard to health care, we will demand a NATIONAL solution covering EVERYONE. This would dry up the be profit margins Pfizer enjoys at our expense.

So, sure, they'll throw out some freebies for one year (the year we are trying to craft meaningful health care reform). And then back to the big gouging they've been doing for years.

Cynical.

[Spector]

Phamaevil wrote:

I am an uninsured Type I diabetic who has worked for over 25 years without a vacation (I am not kidding) who recently lost his health insurance (and obviously cannot get it for the above reason) is down to eating 800 calories a day so I can conserve insulin (I am 15 lbs underweight as of this writing). I paid my whole life into the system only to get nothing in return. Thanks for the free nonsense Pfizer, but I have looked into getting discounted insulin and supplies, and I am told no. My European friends tell me to leave this country in order to get health care in Western Europe, and English isn't my only language so that is appealing, but leaving the US over this; why should I do that, what is happening out there.
This is only another form of advertising for big pharma, this is their every intention.

That is absolutely unbelieveable this can even happen in a civilized country. You really need, must call 311 or something or go to Cook County Hospital to get your insulin refilled. That's not funny and it's not something to mess around with. Why have you not tried this? I would steal if I needed a drug like insulin just in order to stay alive. Go to County ASAP. Good luck.

[Spector]

NoWay wrote:

I can't wait to lose my job. I'd do much better. Right now my co-pay for Rx is $10 (that's more than free), I'm still out of pocket my mortgage every month, and I'm exhausted because I'm doing the workload of three since two colleagues were laid off in February.
I love it when America comes together to help one another and I pray the economy improves - but seriously - at what point is the free ride a little TOO MUCH?

Is this a joke or are you really that ignorant (aka, stupid)? You want to lose your job? Well I already have. You want to know what COBRA extensions cost per month? And my co-pays are +$25 for generics. Most are $75. A private drug company giving away 'free' overstocks of drugs to a handful of people doesn't cost you anything pal. And do you think that keeping people healthy costs more or less than waiting for them to have major medical crises and ending up in and out of ERs on the public's dime? Hmmmm?

Sure, you want to be jobless, let's switch! Then tell me how good it feels to save 10 lousy dollars on a prescription. Sheesh!

[Spector]

Dena wrote:

Of course they can give away these meds that are going to expire anyway. If you read the article you notice that they've been jacking up their prices to cover the fact that more and more people are not filling their prescriptions because they can't afford it.
They want to placate the large group of people who are currently losing insurance because of the down turn in the economy. The truth is that a large number of citizens (self-employed and people without union benefits) were uninsured already. And MOST of those with insurance are under-insured and won't know it until it is too late and they are labeled with a "preexisting condition."
This is an attempt to derail health care reform. If a large enough group of citizens realize our precarious situation in regard to health care, we will demand a NATIONAL solution covering EVERYONE. This would dry up the be profit margins Pfizer enjoys at our expense.
So, sure, they'll throw out some freebies for one year (the year we are trying to craft meaningful health care reform). And then back to the big gouging they've been doing for years.
Cynical.

Very well said.

[Kim 0806]

Spector wrote:

<quoted text>
That is absolutely unbelieveable this can even happen in a civilized country. You really need, must call 311 or something or go to Cook County Hospital to get your insulin refilled. That's not funny and it's not something to mess around with. Why have you not tried this? I would steal if I needed a drug like insulin just in order to stay alive. Go to County ASAP. Good luck.

Absolutely. A few years ago I was unemployed but I still needed my asthma and allergy medications. Without insurance it would have cost me more than $300 a month! I went to a county clinic and they set me up with a prescription plan through the pharmaceutical company that allowed me to pay about $20 for a 6 month supply of all three of my meds. Once I found employment used my insurance so as to allow someone else the assistance.

[Wayne_IL]

I'm not saying that there isn't a health care crisis in this country, but to claim that it will be a good thing if drug compainies stop making profits is blatently false. Where do you think these companies get the money to research new drugs? Do you think that Lipitor and drugs on the market are free to develop? What about the 50-100 drugs that don't go to market because the research shows that they don't work as good as hoped? If drug companies aren't allowed to turn a profit, they will rollback on research, kind of like the cutback in energy research in the US in the 70's due to the windfall profits tax. It is just a good thing that Tom Daschle had tax problems, because he is on record as supporting a British style "rationed" health care system. So this could mean that drug companies can only do research on "common" illnesses, if there are diseases that strike only 1 in 100,000 people, well sorry, no point in spending money, no return (unless if you or a loved one is that one!).

Dena wrote:

Of course they can give away these meds that are going to expire anyway. If you read the article you notice that they've been jacking up their prices to cover the fact that more and more people are not filling their prescriptions because they can't afford it.
They want to placate the large group of people who are currently losing insurance because of the down turn in the economy. The truth is that a large number of citizens (self-employed and people without union benefits) were uninsured already. And MOST of those with insurance are under-insured and won't know it until it is too late and they are labeled with a "preexisting condition."
This is an attempt to derail health care reform. If a large enough group of citizens realize our precarious situation in regard to health care, we will demand a NATIONAL solution covering EVERYONE. This would dry up the be profit margins Pfizer enjoys at our expense.
So, sure, they'll throw out some freebies for one year (the year we are trying to craft meaningful health care reform). And then back to the big gouging they've been doing for years.
Cynical.

[Kim 0806]

KINGPIN wrote:

.
.
.
I did not say the drugs were expired
now.
.
It not a loaf of bread idiot.
.
Drugs have a 1 -2 year self life so
they won,t be expired when they give
them away
.
.
<quoted text>

I did not say that you said they were expired. I was merely giving an example of something that I regularly experience.(I did not realize that was verbotten). We throw away far too much meat at my job because it has reached the use or freeze by date. How I wish we could give the meat to someone who needs it to put in their freezer for up to six months. I just was comparing the situations.

I would hope that any company would rather make sure that public could use an essential product rather than throw the product away just because it did not sell by the expiration date.

[Spector]

Wayne_IL wrote:

I'm not saying that there isn't a health care crisis in this country, but to claim that it will be a good thing if drug compainies stop making profits is blatently false. Where do you think these companies get the money to research new drugs? Do you think that Lipitor and drugs on the market are free to develop? What about the 50-100 drugs that don't go to market because the research shows that they don't work as good as hoped? If drug companies aren't allowed to turn a profit, they will rollback on research, kind of like the cutback in energy research in the US in the 70's due to the windfall profits tax. It is just a good thing that Tom Daschle had tax problems, because he is on record as supporting a British style "rationed" health care system. So this could mean that drug companies can only do research on "common" illnesses, if there are diseases that strike only 1 in 100,000 people, well sorry, no point in spending money, no return (unless if you or a loved one is that one!).
<quoted text>

Oh thank you for this comment! I love this. The majority of money for medical and pharmaceutical research in this country actually comes from ...federal government funding. The drug companies are NOT the sources you give them credit for. The innovations one sees in medicine mostly stem from the federal research funding and trials. And even, hypothetically, if the opposite were to be true, WHY on earth should AMERICANS, the one and only nation in the civilized world without a national health system, be forced to shoulder the financial burden of propping up private, for-profit pharmaceutical companies who sell the exact same drugs in other countries for a fraction of the price they do in the United States? Why should an individual American, or an American insurance company or our federal/state government(s) pay vastly more for Drug X, when Merck or Pfizer, etc., sell the exact same drug for less in Canada or Japan or Germany? There is absolutely no plausable way to justify it.

Americans, whose billions in federal and state tax dollars fund the medical research these pharma companies utilize to develop their products, should no longer be forced to pay marked-up retail prices for what other nations with decent universal health systems get for a huge discount.

Thank Gd that now, finally, this outrageous discrepancy may be curtailed. The federal government should absolutely have the right to negotiate prices of drugs they purchase for Medicare and for any new "Public Plan" insurance offering, no differently than our current private insurers like Blue Cross and Aetna negotiate the prices they will pay for drugs offered to their insureds.

And guess what -- regarding your argument re drugs for common illnesses, rare drugs, etc., those are called "orphan drugs" and are used to treat people with rare, peculiar problems and the pharmaceutical companies have ALREADY ceased developing and selling several such orphan drugs to treat such rare conditions because there is so little demand. And why should they under the current model? No one after all can force a company to anything they don't wish to or are not required to. However that fact still shouldn't force the majority of Americans to shoulder the current broken system's crippling financial burdens. Should millions of Americans go without decent health care or go bankrupt from medical debt because planned reforms may POSSIBLY cause a greedy drug maker to stop producing a 'Lorenzo's Oil'?

The needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

This country desperately needs affordable universal health care and we need it now!

[Wayne_IL]

Well if the Federal Government is doing all the funding for this research, please explain why the Federal Government doesn't own the trademarks for these drugs, the drug companies do? As for other Countries, those government have tight price controls, so either the companies sell for X and not one penny more, or they don't get a license to sell the drug.

Spector wrote:

<quoted text>
Oh thank you for this comment! I love this. The majority of money for medical and pharmaceutical research in this country actually comes from ...federal government funding. The drug companies are NOT the sources you give them credit for. The innovations one sees in medicine mostly stem from the federal research funding and trials. And even, hypothetically, if the opposite were to be true, WHY on earth should AMERICANS, the one and only nation in the civilized world without a national health system, be forced to shoulder the financial burden of propping up private, for-profit pharmaceutical companies who sell the exact same drugs in other countries for a fraction of the price they do in the United States? Why should an individual American, or an American insurance company or our federal/state government(s) pay vastly more for Drug X, when Merck or Pfizer, etc., sell the exact same drug for less in Canada or Japan or Germany? There is absolutely no plausable way to justify it.
Americans, whose billions in federal and state tax dollars fund the medical research these pharma companies utilize to develop their products, should no longer be forced to pay marked-up retail prices for what other nations with decent universal health systems get for a huge discount.
Thank Gd that now, finally, this outrageous discrepancy may be curtailed. The federal government should absolutely have the right to negotiate prices of drugs they purchase for Medicare and for any new "Public Plan" insurance offering, no differently than our current private insurers like Blue Cross and Aetna negotiate the prices they will pay for drugs offered to their insureds.
And guess what -- regarding your argument re drugs for common illnesses, rare drugs, etc., those are called "orphan drugs" and are used to treat people with rare, peculiar problems and the pharmaceutical companies have ALREADY ceased developing and selling several such orphan drugs to treat such rare conditions because there is so little demand. And why should they under the current model? No one after all can force a company to anything they don't wish to or are not required to. However that fact still shouldn't force the majority of Americans to shoulder the current broken system's crippling financial burdens. Should millions of Americans go without decent health care or go bankrupt from medical debt because planned reforms may POSSIBLY cause a greedy drug maker to stop producing a 'Lorenzo's Oil'?
The needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
This country desperately needs affordable universal health care and we need it now!

[Spector]

Wayne_IL wrote:

Well if the Federal Government is doing all the funding for this research, please explain why the Federal Government doesn't own the trademarks for these drugs, the drug companies do? As for other Countries, those government have tight price controls, so either the companies sell for X and not one penny more, or they don't get a license to sell the drug.
<quoted text>

If there was a point to your argument, you haven't made it.

[Dena]

Spector wrote, "And even, hypothetically, if the opposite were to be true, WHY on earth should AMERICANS, the one and only nation in the civilized world without a national health system, be forced to shoulder the financial burden of propping up private, for-profit pharmaceutical companies who sell the exact same drugs in other countries for a fraction of the price they do in the United States?"

Wow, that is so well put! We have millions of people here with no access at all to the benefits of modern medicine because we are the only "civilized" nation without national health care for all citizens. And yet we are being charged astronomical prices for drugs people in other countries get for pennies. Insane.

Likewise, uninsured people are charged two to 10 times more for the exact same hospital procedure than people with insurance are charged. Then the hospital turns around and reports that they are giving out millions of dollars worth of free care due to uninsured people not paying their bills.

Then politicians try to blame the crisis on those deadbeat uninsured people. This is such an unfair characterization.

It's insane. Wake up America! We need to band together. We are all just one illness away from losing our employer sponsored health insurance anyway. That is if we don't lose it because of the bad economy. We need one big common risk pool.

Individual coverage is a joke. They will gladly take your premiums for years, but then when you are really sick you'll be stuck in an ever shrinking pool of sick individuals like yourself. Naturally the premiums will sky-rocket and you will be priced right out of your policy.

[nooneuknow]

Mom wrote:

"Drugs from several other popular classes such as antibiotics, antidepressants, antifungal treatments, heart mediations, CONTRACEPTIVES and smoking cessation products also are included"
Read people!

how about insulin and asthma meds? Or maybe cancer fighting drugs?

[Edward]

Viagra from http://ed-airstorepills.info is indeed good for male erection problem treatment. Thanks for that. They perfectly work! I have found them very good value for money.
Free airmail shipping.
I hope this information will be useful to others.

[Pharma Maims Kills]

Free product meant to hook them on it for life. Many would never use it if it was THRUST UPON them. But with Pfizer PUSHIN it they will. Then once established in their lives they will become purchasers. Surely the free pills are for a short time only.