Browsing PBH By Articles

Doctors, Big Pharma Profit On Blindness, Taxpayers Lose

The Article: An effective eye drug is available for $50. But many doctors choose a $2,000 alternative. by Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating in The Washington Post.

The Text: The two drugs have been declared equivalently miraculous. Tested side by side in six major trials, both prevent blindness in a common old-age affliction. Biologically, they are cousins. They’re even made by the same company.

But one holds a clear price advantage.Avastin costs about $50 per injection.

Lucentis costs about $2,000 per injection.

Doctors choose the more expensive drug more than half a million times every year, a choice that costs the Medicare program, the largest single customer, an extra $1 billion or more annually.

Spending that much may make little sense for a country burdened by ever-
rising health bills, but as is often the case in American health care, there is a certain economic logic: Doctors and drugmakers profit when more-costly treatments are adopted.

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‘The Wire’ Creator: There Are Two Americas

The Article: ‘There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show’ by David Simon in The Guardian.

The Text: America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.

There’s no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We’ve somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you’re seeing this more and more in the west. I don’t think it’s unique to America.

I think we’ve perfected a lot of the tragedy and we’re getting there faster than a lot of other places that may be a little more reasoned, but my dangerous idea kind of involves this fellow who got left by the wayside in the 20th century and seemed to be almost the butt end of the joke of the 20th century; a fellow named Karl Marx.

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Why Millennials Can’t Grow Up

The Article: Why Millennials Can’t Grow Up by Brooke Donatone in Slate.

The Text: Amy (not her real name) sat in my office and wiped her streaming tears on her sleeve, refusing the scratchy tissues I’d offered. “I’m thinking about just applying for a Ph.D. program after I graduate because I have no idea what I want to do.” Amy had mild depression growing up, and it worsened during freshman year of college when she moved from her parents’ house to her dorm. It became increasingly difficult to balance school, socializing, laundry, and a part-time job. She finally had to dump the part-time job, was still unable to do laundry, and often stayed up until 2 a.m. trying to complete homework because she didn’t know how to manage her time without her parents keeping track of her schedule.

I suggested finding a job after graduation, even if it’s only temporary. She cried harder at this idea. “So, becoming an adult is just really scary for you?” I asked. “Yes,” she sniffled. Amy is 30 years old.

Her case is becoming the norm for twenty- to thirtysomethings I see in my office as a psychotherapist. I’ve had at least 100 college and grad students like Amy crying on my couch because breaching adulthood is too overwhelming.

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The GOP’s Race Problem

The Article: GOP’s race problem: What’s really behind that bad tweet by Brittney Cooper in Salon.

The Text: With this week marking the 58th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, much has rightly been made of the Republican National Committee tweeting a picture of Rosa Parks this weekend, with a caption that said: “today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.” (emphasis added)

But while many have justifiably focused on the claim that racism has “ended” (which the RNC later “clarified“), another significant truth has gotten lost. If they really cared about Rosa Parks’ memory, Republicans would attempt to emulate her courage in challenging the white male entitlement that demanded she give up the seat that she paid for. That kind of white male entitlement still dominates both the GOP and the American political scene today.

For example, if the party really wanted to take lessons from Rosa Parks’ story, it would think about the 90 percent of African-Americans who stayed off those buses and walked or carpooled to work in order to demand equal treatment and recognition of their dignity. In contemporary elections, it is routine that more than 90 percent of black America votes for anyone but the GOP.

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Noam Chomsky On Why America Hates Its Poor

The Article: Why America Hates Its Poor by Noam Chomsky in AlterNet.

The Text: An article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled “Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail,” by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that there’s “an arrestable class and an unarrestable class.” What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?

Well, there’s always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious—they’re constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.

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