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posted by janrinok on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the caravans-gonna-caravan dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

A "caravan" of Americans living with Type 1 diabetes made its way across the U.S. border into Canada over the weekend in search of affordable medical care in a country where they can get the "exact same" life-saving drugs for a dramatically lower price.

"We're on a #CaravanToCanada because the USA charges astronomical prices for insulin that most people can't afford," tweeted caravan member Quinn Nystrom as she shared updates on the journey.

Nystrom was among a group of Minnesotans who piled into cars on Friday to make the 600-mile journey from the Twin Cities to Fort Frances, Ontario, where she said insulin, the hormone patients with Type 1 Diabetes rely on to regulate their blood glucose levels, can be bought for a tenth of what it costs in the U.S.

The caravan was organized as part of a campaign launched under the banner "#insulinforall" to call on the U.S. government to regulate the cost of life-saving drugs, including insulin, and make medication affordable for anyone who needs it.

[...]

President Donald Trump's administration has vowed to address calls for greater drug pricing regulation. But, Democrats, including Cummings, have criticized the U.S. leader for being all talk and no action on that promise.

"Tweets are not enough," Cummings said in a statement, after Trump lamented high drug costs on Twitter. "We need real action and meaningful reform," Cummings said.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/caravan-americans-crossing-canadian-border-get-affordable-medical-care-1417582


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  • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by sshelton76 on Tuesday May 07 2019, @10:00PM (3 children)

    by sshelton76 (7978) on Tuesday May 07 2019, @10:00PM (#840466)

    Jesus who has the mod points to nuke the entire thread with troll mods?

    Do you guys know what a troll is?
    Troll does not mean "I disagree with you", we have a "disagree" mod for that.
    It means, this post or this conversation has no worth and serves only to agitate rather than provoke discussion.

    Modding content you disagree with as "troll", does two things. First off it reduces the effectiveness of the troll mod in general because you literally turn it into a case of the boy who cried wolf and therefore people will quickly learn to ignore it, thus you're wasting your own mod points trying to drown out a conversation where adults are talking and saying things you disagree with.

    Secondly it reduces everyone's ability to deal with actual trolls since you have less mod points and the people who use their mod points to fix your error also have less mod points.

    My advice, own your opinion. You disagree? Cool, talk with us and try to convince us to see things your way while we try to convince you to see things our way and maybe we change opinions, maybe we meet in the middle or maybe we all get bored and call each other doodie heads, who knows? It's called conversation. You're on a site where conversation is what we do. Feel free to participate, or lurk. Just don't lie to yourself and others by flagging a legit conversation, or question as a troll. Makes the whole site look bad, especially to outsiders or lurkers who might otherwise consider joining.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   0  
       Offtopic=1, Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday May 07 2019, @11:17PM (1 child)

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday May 07 2019, @11:17PM (#840499)

    We're you meaning to respond to me, or did you just use me as a soapbox? :)

    I agree with you though. I don't give out that many negative mods, and concentrate on elevating others,including those I've often disagree with. The troll mod is really for people like EH when they're racist slur to text ratio goes to high. The disagree mod just seems lazy to me anyways. If I want to signal that, I'll respond. Instead of modding you disagree....

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @12:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @12:48AM (#840545)

      Yeah you were my soapbox there, sorry about that.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @03:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @03:07AM (#840606)

    Three names come to mind for likely suspects, but one of them strikes me as too reasonable to hand out -1 disagrees (instead of using the official disagree mod!) and the other two I would hope are intelligent enough and not too far gone in petty us vs. them tribal bullshit to realize this is a legitimate criticism of the Democratic Party.

    We all hope that the Democratic Party can be dragged kicking and screaming leftward, but I think the Trotskyists at wswswswsws have the correct analysis. Being a capitalist party, the D team is incapable of moving leftwards at this stage of the game when the political power of capital so thoroughly supersedes the political power of a voting booth. It's a matter of class interests and the inherent class conflict capitalism creates. The capitalist parties represent bourgeois interests, such as the entrenchment of cash cows like the medical "insurance" industry (a service that pays for routine services is not insurance... buyer's club maybe but we all know they're nothing but parasites), and they are incapable of representing the working class.

    The only way we're going to get single payer healthcare is through independent working class action. Not saying SEP/wswsws is the ideal vanguard party. However, they're correct in pointing out that only independent action that interrupts the flow of capital (profits) such as mass strikes will result in action benefiting the working class. Best case, there are mass, nonviolent strikes, maybe a miracle happens and the powers that be listen... but history demonstrates often there is additional escalation before there are results.... Make sure to learn the lessons of the teacher's strikes, the Matamoros strikes, and the Yellow Vests, in addition to all the lessons from the upheavals of the early 20th century and the American civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s (including the conundrum that its goals have yet to be achieved, or could be achieved under capitalism).

    We are never getting single payer from the Democratic Party, no matter what noises they make when they're not in power. They could pass a bill in the house tomorrow giving us the leanest, bestest, most super-duper single payer system on the planet, only because they can count on the senate, Trump, or even SCOTUS at this point to shoot it down. They will never do that when such a bill has a chance of becoming law. What is one to do? Cry about it, or pursue a strategy that might actually result in single payer regardless of whether or not Pelosi approves?