Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Thirty Years After The Great War, A Soldier Tells His Story.

They told us it wasn't a war about water, but we knew better.

How could it not be? Have you ever seen a picture of that planet? The bright blue will almost blind you if you don't put on your special gamma-ray combat spectacles. And the parts that aren't blue are almost a perfect white from the water in their atmosphere. These creatures literally breathed water! Rumor had it their bodies were almost 80 percent of it. That's they kind of crazy shit you hear in combat. The tales your commanders will tell to try and de-glockerize the gockerizans you have been sent to kill.

Or, I should say, sent to be killed by. They lined us up in neat little rows, one behind the other, and told us to just keep going. We told them it was insanity, that it was a slaughter waiting to happen, but our words fell on deaf ears. Column after column was mowed down by their base cannon. I lost some good friends that day. Some of the best Glockerites you ever would have had the pleasure of knowing. I still hear their cries sometimes at night. I still see them in my dreams.

Why did they just march us straight at them like that? How could they not know they were getting 20 shots off for every one we could fire? I was only 19 years old, and I was terrified. We told them every time they flew over in one of their command ships that this was a turkey shoot, but even after three of their command ships were destroyed, nothing changed.

Continue forward the orders read. Increase your speed.

I can't claim to be a hero. I don't even remember firing the shot that was the one that destroyed their last base cannon. I just remember the cold. Cold that would freeze you down to the last froggio of your being. I was no braver, no smarter, no more worthy than any of my brothers left on the battlefield that day. Yet fate chose me as the one to live.

In the end we got their water. We installed Reagan as their leader and he gave us all the water we wanted. We started pumping carbon dioxide into their atmosphere and as soon as that shitty little planet of theirs warms up enough to support decent Glockerzians, we have a new colony.

I can't help but to think if it was worth it though. I know it sounds heretical, but sometimes I think that if maybe we just would have invested more in wind and solar energy, my brothers would still be alive.

I can admit it now. It was all about the water.


Sunday, June 27, 2010

From The "I Really Wouldn't Be The World's Worst Parent" File. (Part 1)

SALINAS, Calif.—A California couple faces child endangerment charges after police say they tried to sell their 6-month-old baby for $25 outside a Walmart store.
Salinas police spokesman, Officer Lalo Villegas, said Thursday that Patrick Fousek, 38, and Samantha Tomasini, 20, were arrested early Wednesday, hours after Fousek allegedly approached two women outside Walmart and asked if they'd like to purchase his child.

Walmart. Low prices. Always. I was out baby shopping just last week and Macy's wanted $150 for their babies. On sale. Couple that with the $4 amoxicillin for the kid's first ear infection and you gotta ask yourself, why you would shop anywhere else?

Fousek and Tomasini were arrested at 1 a.m. Wednesday at their home. Officers said the couple appeared high on methamphetamine and the house was in disarray. A police report also claimed that Tomasini told Child Protective Services, who took the baby, that she had breast-fed the infant while under the influence, Villegas said.

"It was my way of pinching pennies" Tomasini didn't say. "No matter how much of a crack whore I became, there just never seemed to be enough money for both of our Adderall prescriptions. This way I could treat both of our ADDs at once"

You know I write tongue in cheek. Keep reading if you yearn for any sense of justice in this world.....

From The "Who Knew The Nation's Prisoners Had Such Family Values" File. (Part 2)

Under heightened courtroom security, two Salinas parents were arraigned Friday in connection with an alleged attempt to sell their 8-month-old daughter.

Patrick Alan Fousek, 38, and Samantha Tomasini, 20, are being held in segregated, lockdown cells at the Monterey County Jail, Fousek after an attack by inmates Thursday night.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Mike Richards said inmates in the open dorm where Fousek had been housed jumped him at 10:15p.m. after the details of his charges were reported on television news.

Richards said Fousek was transported to Natividad Medical Center, where he was treated for multiple injuries to his face, and two cracked ribs before being returned to the jail

OK, in all seriousness now, there are really no winners here. A child's life thrown into disarray. Two people caught in the vicious web of drug addiction, and now, with a dash of senseless violence......

ok...wait.....I can't do this anymore.......

BBBBBBBWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! THEY BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM AFTER SEEING IT ON THE NEWS!!!!! BBBWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAHHHHAAAHHHHAAAAA!!!!!!

I just....snicker.....can't get the image....chuckle.....of the split second after the news story....hee hee.....when everyone turned around and looked at the dude...ha ha...out of my head....

BBBBBBWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHAAAHHHHAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, you didn't think I was that much of a bleeding heart did you?

Me thinks there are some prisoners who have earned a little extra meat in their dinner this night.....

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Now We're Not Saying Osama Bin Laden Uses Flomax....

Actually, yes, that's exactly what we're saying:




Tricare, for those of you playing along at home, is the socialized medicine program that covers our nation's active and retired military personnel. I've never felt so proud to be an American as the first time I filled a prescription for Uroxatral.

I gotta tell you though, even if Flomax is the drug of evildoers, the remedy of all that stand against us in the great struggle of civilizations, the cure of godless, soulless, despotic communist terrorists who get up multiple times during the night to pee, I don't want that bird, and especially that beak, anywhere near my prostate.

I'll have what Fidel is having, thanks.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

I Think The Fact I Can Wax Philosophic About Tiger Woods Is A Testament To My Great Mind. Because I Really Hate Golf.

Not the sport so much. Mostly it's the type of people that play golf that I can't stand to be around. The smug arrogance that comes from being born on third base and being convinced you hit a triple. That's what you see when you look into the eyes of a golfer. Fierce defenders of their unearned privilege. They will never hesitate to lecture you about how ours is a society where people advance on the basis of merit and then do things like this to the most meritorious among them:

Alas, his best was not quite good enough. Shortly after he won the US Amateur Championship for the first time Woods was approached on the driving range by a then club employee who, according to numerous sources, told him he would have to leave because there had been a complaint about an "n word" hitting balls there. "There was no way Tiger was hitting balls into anyone's back garden," says Rogers. "He wasn't a bad enough golfer."

That would be Tiger Woods. Ten years ago Tiger Woods won the US Open by an incredible 15 strokes, a feat that remains one of the great performances in all of sporting history. I don't have to tell you Woods was in a universe of his own on the golf course 10 years ago. I probably do have to tell you that he was made to carry a receipt for anything he bought at the country club where he practiced as a child "because there had been complaints from members." Or that his mother wasn't allowed to bring food to a clubhouse party celebrating one of his tournament wins.

"I used to think they treated him badly because they were pricks but the more I think about it they were probably racists, too" said an article I remembered reading a few years ago but had to comb through the web unbelievably hard to find. Americans don't like to read about ugly truths. We like to imagine a world where people like Tiger Woods are nurtured and recognized for the incredible talent they are instead of being spurned when they offer to let that country club display the trophy from a US Amateur championship.

And then we act baffled when they self destruct. Today Tiger Woods is a walking punch line, he is battling a neck injury, and he faces the real possibility that he will lose custody of his children. A lot of his problems are the result of his own foolish decisions, yes. But I am well aware of how bad karma placed in a child can be the source of foolish decisions when that child turns into an adult.

So are you. Except for one or two of those fuckers you'll find sipping a beer at the clubhouse of your local country club, we've all had bad karma planted in us. No one makes it. No one's happy. Elvis Presley was successful beyond any of our wildest dreams and died fat and in a narcotic haze struggling to take a shit. It makes us feel better about ourselves though, when a public downfall is unexplained. We remember the bad karmic seed within us and think if not for that we would have won our own US Open or made our own gold record and would have handled the ensuing success so much better than that schlep. There was a reason for our foolish decisions we say to ourselves. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, must be an idiot.

Today Tiger Woods shot a 66 and vaulted right into the thick of the hunt for this year's US Open championship. I hate golfers. Which is why I'll be hoping he pulls it off.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Maybe If Wyeth Had Paid Me $2000 Like They Did At Least One Doctor, I Would Tell You How Great Rapamune Is. Until I Get That Check Though, I'll Just Tell You How They're Accused Of Illegally Marketing It.

I've been accused, at times, of being a left-wing partisan. Of being a part of a vast media echo chamber whose mission is to parrot the talking points of the day handed down from our socialist overlords in order to meld the clay minds of the under-informed to secure the votes we need to implement the nightmare that would be a society more just and fair.

To which I would say this, would a member of a vast liberal plot to coordinate the thoughts of this country ever tell the Huffington Post they were dead wrong? Because that's exactly what I thought after I read this bit from a post there last month:

In a stunning whistleblower lawsuit, the world's largest pharmaceutical company is being sued over the dangerous practice of illegally promoting a kidney transplant drug for unapproved uses and targeting African-Americans, even though they are at high risk of complications.
...Sandler and Paris claim that Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer, promoted the "off-label" use of Rapamune, a kidney transplant drug which generated $376 million in sales in 2008, encouraging its sales force to promote the drug for heart, lung, liver, and pancreas transplants even though Rapamune was never approved for those procedures. The Food and Drug Administration warned against such off-label use of Rapamune in 2004 and 2007.

Um, excuse me Huffington Post, but maybe you can get your facts straight. Let's dig a little into the record, shall we?

A division of Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, has agreed to plead guilty to two felonies and pay $430 million in penalties to settle charges that it fraudulently promoted the drug Neurontin for a string of unapproved uses.

And a little more:

As part of the record settlement, Pfizer agreed to pay $300 million to resolve allegations that it engaged in off-label marketing of its blockbuster atypical antipsychotic Geodon

And the hits just keep on a comin':

Pfizer also agreed to pay $100 million to resolve allegations that it improperly marketed its antibiotic Zyvox.

So I think by "stunning" what The Huffington Post may actually mean is "routine" My search for that famous liberal media bias I keep hearing so much about continues....

What is mildly surprising about this latest of the improper marketing lawsuits that seem to have a way of piling up at Pfizer's doorstep is the racial aspect. From the lawsuit:

In 2005, Wyeth’s sales management (headed by National Director of Transplant Sales Joe McCafferty) selected Philadelphia’s Einstein Medical Center as a center on which to focus a Wyeth marketing plan designed to rapidly increase or accelerate Rapamune sales in a 90 day period. Einstein’s transplant patient population was approximately 75% African-American in 2005.

Now from bnet.com

The suit claims that there is limited data on Rapamune use in black patients, who need a different dosing regimen than whites. Nonetheless, Wyeth targeted another hospital that primarily serves the black community for Rapamune “conversion.” Conversion is the practice of switching a patient from their existing transplant drugs to Rapamune. The FDA has only ever approved Rapamune for first-line use in kidney patients, and since 2004 the drug has carried a black box warning against conversion. Even Wyeth’s own internal studies did not show improved outcomes on Rapamune converted patients:

So, in 2004, a black-box warning was included in Rapamune's prescribing information against conversion. And in 2005, which is after 2004, Wyeth targets a hospital that serves primarily African-Americans to see if they can get some conversion happening.

I wish I could say that was stunning, but yeah, I'm sticking with mildly surprising.

"We prefer to think of it as an affirmative-action program" said Pfizer Chairman and CEO Jeffrey B. Kindler in an imaginary interview. "Actually more of a tribute to the many ways African-Americans have added to the mosaic that is America. Just as John Coltrane didn't follow the rules of music when composing his signature style of jazz, just as Martin Luther King did not always follow the rules of society as he led the struggle to defeat Jim Crow, we at Pfizer did not feel bound to follow the "rules" when striving to serve the African-Americans who are such an integral part of our experience as a nation."

Back to the real world now:

The suit describes a speakers list of 18 physicians who could talk about off-label use of drugs. One of those cited was the Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Stuart Flechner, who was available to speak about the use of Rapamune "for an honorarium of $2,000 or "prorated $15,000." Flechner, a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, was named one of the Top Doctors in America, according to the clinic's Website.
When doctors at Mt. Sinai Medical Center expressed concerns about using Rapamune as part of a specific regimen, Wyeth brought in Flechner to talk to them:
"Wyeth paid Dr. Flechner to assist in the marketing of the unapproved combination of Cellcept, an IL-2 receptor antagonist and Rapamune in order to overcome these objections and secure Rapamune sales."

I wonder how you spend blood money? Other than on some Ambien to help you sleep at night, I do wonder what you get when you sell your soul as people are struggling for their lives?

And I wonder when we're going to wake up. The corporations on Wall Street came within a whisker of destroying the world's economy with their little derivative games a couple years ago. The corporation with the warm and fuzzy green logo that says it's "Beyond Petroleum" is in the process of destroying this country's Gulf Coast with petroleum. And now, once again, the corporations that we entrust with our very lives seem to be comfortable with sacrificing a few of us in order to makes this quarter's sales goals.

And yet the more liberal among us still claimed to be stunned. The first step to a solution my friends, is to lose the surprise.

Wake...up.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Rewards And Realization And.....God I Wish I Was Stupid Sometimes So Thoughts Like These Would Quit Going Through My Head.

I deserved the heart attack on a plate that is a full serving of Denny's nachos. For I kicked ass this day at work.

Tech didn't show up. Tracked him down on his cellphone after half an hour and he said he had talked to the manager about taking today off. Something about his brother's graduation. Said he was sorry and he was on his way.

I thought of all the holidays I worked as an intern to avoid the family and felt a twinge of jealousy. I told him to go to the graduation, and thus sealed my fate.

They came at me with full force. Waves of them waving little papers from the urgent care. Tourists not familiar with American drug prices. People expecting faxes that were not there. Prior auths that were not understood. Phones that never quit. I was mowing it all down my friends. Then the computer crashed. And I handled that too. And could have beat out those clowns at CVS in a professionalism contest with one hand tied behind my back as well.

Because work seems to be the only part of my life functioning normally at the moment. Behind the counter the only time my brain chemistry feels normal. I mowed down the prescription madness this day in a way only an experienced professional could. And for the first time in a while all was right in my head.

Then my shift ended. My mind rewarded me with a little endorphin action and a craving for nachos. Which tells me dopamine may have been involved as well.

It was the waiter's first day. I knew it before he told me. The overeagerness gave him away. He hadn't given his all towards a customer only to be stiffed when it came time for the tip too many times yet. He would be. A few minutes after he took my order he seated a family of four in front of me and I felt a twinge of the jealousy like I felt towards my tech this morning. The family seemed normal and happy and therefore fascinated me. The waiter joked with them and made the little boy wearing a superman shirt laugh. I studied them over the top of my newspaper. It was when superman boy said he had to go to the bathroom that I first saw it. The look on Dad's face. He was tired. Distant. The joy in this family was coming solely from the lady and the kids. This guy wanted to be a million miles away from wiping his kid's ass on a Denny's diaper changing table. I looked at him and remembered my twinge of jealousy and knew he would be seething with that same emotion if he could have known of my last weekend. Any married man would have loved to had been me last weekend. Last weekend I scored in a way almost straight out of a Penthouse Forum and afterwards felt about as empty as the look on this married man's face as superman boy begged him to watch him crash two toy airplanes into each other one more time.

No one is happy. Each of us had a little of what the other wanted and neither one of us would be happy if he got it.

The waiter came back and continued to joke with the family. Things seemed to be going well until he said something about an outfit that made him "look retarded." Retarded is a word on the cusp. In 10 years it will be said in public no more. There will be a new word and in 30 years that word will no longer be said in public. Today though, retarded is the kind of word that will wrap a blanket of silence around a conversation when said in front of the wrong people. And maybe cost you a tip.

I put the nachos in my stomach and went past the time of my endorphin's first half life. I left the waiter 20% of my bill and wished him well in my mind. I worked the crossword in the paper as the dopamine slipped away. I was sated. Even if I didn't know a 5 letter word for pretentious.

Reality slowly slipped back into my brain like the tide flowing across the beach.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Dear Pharmacy Benefit Managers, There Is Now An Oligopoly On Both Sides of Your Contract. Prepare To Reap What You Have Sown.

I've known this day was coming for years. I wish I would have written about it earlier so you would all know how wise I am.

I did used to joke about it with District Managers though. As the years went by and the competitors became fewer, I would regularly say things like "When are we going to be be big enough that we can start telling the insurance companies what we are willing to let them pay us?"

The answer, if you're Walgreens, was yesterday:

Walgreen Co., the nation's largest drugstore chain, landed a punch on CVS Caremark Corp. when it said on Monday that it won't fill prescriptions for patients newly covered under pharmacy-drug plans administered by CVS's Caremark unit.
Walgreen said it objects to how some CVS prescription plans use discounts to prod patients with chronic conditions to use either CVS stores or its Caremark mail-order pharmacy. Walgreen also cited CVS Caremark's "unpredictable" reimbursement rates and lack of information when patients transfer to other plans. Working with CVS, it said, is "no longer in the best interests" of customers, pharmacists and shareholders.

Never before can I remember a drug chain growing a pair and standing up to an entire Pharmacy Benefits Manager like this. There have been squabbles over individual contracts from time to time, and occasional gamesmanship when it came to a state Medicaid plan now and then, but it takes way bigger cajones to take on corporation number 18 in the Fortune 500 than it does to pick on a state government these days.This is huge. This has the potential to inconvenience middle class people, and possibly a few who are affluent.

Granted, this particular PBM is owned by Walgreen's main retail rival, which gives the Pharmacy America Trusts an extra incentive to go after them, but still, this is a step up from picking on the poor people. A big fight is brewing between two of the two-and-a-half major drug chains left in this country. Who do we as a profession root for?

Injuries, mostly. One of these corporations has a pilot program that has turned pharmacists into cashiers in lab coats and the other has de-professionalized its operations to the point where they can evidently hum along just fine with someone in charge only pretending to be a pharmacist. Wasn't it Rocky II that had that cheeseball ending where both Rocky and Apollo Creed knock each other out and are simultaneously struggling to get up before the final bell? Something like that would be ideal.

But something like that will most likely not happen. Walgreens and CVS will huff and puff over the next few weeks or months. They will arch up their backs and growl like two tomcats in the alley at three o'clock in the morning, and in the end, they will reach some sort of agreement that will spare the middle class any inconvenience. After all, as far as I know even with the poor people it never got to the point where the trigger was actually pulled on them.

But, the precedent has been set. In the post Revco, Super-X, Phar-Mor, Eckerd, Duane Reade, Reliable, People's Drug, Brooks, Drug Emporium, and Longs world, Walgreen's has woken up and realized it can threaten any PBM with an immediate loss of 12% of the locations where that PBM's members can have prescriptions filled. The people at Medco must be shitting their pants right about now. And while the prospect of Medco shitting its pants is a happy one, I do hope Walgreen's takes a few head punches first. I plan to sit back and watch this one like a white guy at a California prison riot.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Highlights From Friday's Pill Counting Action.

Come someone answer me a question? I think we can all agree there are truly evil people in this world. Not just a CEO who says he wants his life back when 11 of his employees have lost theirs. No. It totally gets worse than him. There are genocidal manics on this planet. Serial killers who will slice you open just for the sheer joy of killing as opposed to in the service of the corporation's bottom line. Charles Manson. The list of truly sick, demented, twisted people without a single thing good inside of them is a long one.

So why does Karma decide to get all over my shit for making fun of a guy in a wheelchair? And only in my head? And when the guy really did look funny struggling against the uphill grade of my employer's parking lot?

I saw wheelchair guy and snickered on my way into the store and within 10 minutes had a customer try to pay for $1800 worth of medications with a check. Yes, I said $1800. A check of that amount will set off buzzers and sirens and all other sorts of alarms with my employer's point of sale software, which makes a big 'ol mess the assistant manager has to try to straighten out. He has to call some money-type place to get the check approved, which means he has to wade through the money-type place's voicemail and listen to their assurance that his call is very important to them before he ever gets a chance to find out the fate of the $1800 check. It took a good 10 minutes, seriously. Then the register crashed. Then when they rebooted the register the receipt didn't print, and the guy, kinda understandably, really wanted a receipt for his $1800 check. You can imagine how this was going over with the customers waiting in line behind check man. I looked over at the other side of the pharmacy and saw Karma staring at me, her face a reminder that when fucked with she can indeed be a bitch. I started to launch a protest but Karma reminded me I was still on probation from an earlier incident and then vanished in the blink of an eye.

We don't have to get into the details of the earlier incident, but I can assure you it had nothing to do with serial killing. Fate is unfair to me, yet I struggle on. While the manager had his hands full trying to handle the money, I tried to soothe the backlog of waiting customers by doing professional things like explaining to a little old man that there was no Vitamin D in Claritin-D, and so while, yes, I understood that his doctor told him to get some Vitamin D, there was no need for him to wait in the pharmacy line for it. I'd like to think I earned a point back with Karma for that one.

A customer asked my non-regular technician if the prescription he was dropping off was legible. The non-regular tech did what he usually does when he is asked a question, which is slowly walk over to me and repeat it, usually without losing too much in translation.

"Drugmonkey, is this legible?"

"Can you read it?"

"Yes"

"There you go"

"So, is it legible?"

It would be a long two hours until my keystone tech showed up.

There were some legibility issues with a prescription later on that day, for those of you not in the profession, I'll tell you the Latin abbreviation for "every day," QD, is precariously close to that for "four times a day," QID. It's usually not a problem, but there was a little question on this one.

"Ma'am, you usually take these just once a day, is that right?"

"NO, I JUST TAKE ONE AT BEDTIME!!!!!!!!"

Properly berated, I resisted the temptation to type the easy to mistake overdose on her label, being on the very thin ice with Karma I already evidently was.

My keystone tech came in and fielded this question from the first customer she waited on:

"This says 'flexible foam,' what does that mean?"

"Well, it's like foamy, and it's flexible"

My keystone tech has a gift to be able to say such things in a way that customers will find them to be perfectly acceptable answers. God I love my keystone tech.

She can't be everywhere at once though, and sometimes I have to slide over and man the cash  register when no one else is around.

"I THINK THIS WOULD BE LESS IF I HAD PRESCRIPTION INSURANCE!!" The fat man said in a heavy Russian accent. "WHAT IS PRESCRIPTION INSURANCE?? I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH THIS. YOU CAN GET ME SOME, YES??"

I looked up and saw Karma standing behind the man giggling. She was just fucking with me now. The way my cat Spooky does an injured mouse.

Which is why when I saw the second wheelchair guy, who also looked very funny trying to navigate the store aisles mind you, I knew exactly what to do. I asked him if there was anything in the store he needed help finding. That may have been the only time in the four years I have spent with my current employer I have ever volunteered to help a customer find something.

Which I expect will get me off the hook with Karma. As unfairly as she treats me, I know better than to fight her. I'll find out tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

CVS Makes An Honest Mistake. And By Honest Mistake I Mean Rips Off Its Customers. Probably To The Tune Of At Least A Million Dollars.

You know how it's illegal, if you run a store, to advertise one price for a product and then charge another, higher price for that product when a customer comes in to buy it? That's why we have rain checks and stuff. Because it's totally illegal to get someone's business by promising to sell something at one price and then charging another.

Unless, evidently, you're CVS. From that bastion of the liberal media, The Wall Street Journal:


Many customers of CVS Caremark Corp.'s SilverScript Medicare prescription-drug programs have been paying higher prices than they were promised when they signed up for the plans in late 2009.
CVS blames the problem on a computer error, which it says caused prices for brand-name drugs to be listed about 4% lower than they should have been. It says the error appeared in data CVS supplied to the Medicare website that allows senior citizens to do comparison shopping between rival prescription insurance plans.
CVS says it has been charging consumers the higher prices since the beginning of 2010.
Many senior citizens use the price-comparison tools in November and December to shop for their Medicare Part D drug coverage for the following year. The tools allow Medicare recipients to plug in the drugs they take, and provide comparative costs for various plans. The inaccurate information, which appeared from Oct. 8, 2009, to Jan. 8, 2010, made the CVS plans seem more attractive than they should have been.

Holy Nader's Raiders Batman!! Surely the guardians of the consumer that toil away in the halls of Washington's bureaucracy will ensure there will be hell to pay for this. Especially with that socialist Obama in charge now, there's just no way a corporation can get away with overcharging its customers. Get ready for the wrath of righteousness CVS!!!!

CVS notified the federal regulator, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about the problem in January. A Medicare spokesman said regulators worked with CVS to craft a response plan, under which CVS would offer a refund for the price difference, but only to consumers who specifically requested that. The Medicare spokesman said CVS also agreed to help unhappy customers switch to another plan.

That'll show 'em.

CVS sent letters of apology to affected customers starting in late March. A letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the possibility of a refund, but directed a recipient with questions to call a toll-free number to discuss "your options."
"Did I pay too much for medication?" the letter said in question-and-answer format. The answer: "No." The letter said the drugs were "priced correctly at the pharmacy, but may have been higher than what the price-comparison tools estimated."
An affected consumer who recently called CVS's toll-free number said he was told he could file a "grievance" to seek a refund for brand-name drugs bought up to that date, but only if he had a printout of the original inaccurate pricing information from the Internet.
A CVS spokeswoman said that consumer's experience wasn't consistent with the company's policy, which is to provide a refund if asked.

So.....I'm gonna do a little back-of-the-envelope math here. Let's say every CVS store has 15 customers in one of these SilverScript plans, and each of these customers has two $120 brand-name prescriptions filled.

Let me know if you think these assumptions unreasonable. I don't think they are.

So, 15 customers x 240 dollars x 4% "mistake" in the advertised price = 144 extra dollars per CVS store. Ho-hum.

Until, that is, we multiply that by the 7,000 retail pharmacies that CVS operates. Do that and now we'll see that "mistake" netted CVS an extra one million dollars of pure friggin' profit. The equivalent of filling an extra 667,000 prescriptions at the standard $1.50 insurance dispensing fee. It's a lot easier to hit a few "wrong" buttons at corporate headquarters while inputting data than it is to fill 667,000 prescriptions. Especially since CVS didn't have to hire the one extra pharmacist and two technicians they would budget to fill 667,000 prescriptions.

And they're gonna get to keep most of that money. Because how many people are going to 1) Notice 2) Be pissed off enough to argue over $10 and 3) Successfully get past the help desk flunkie who's feeding them bullshit about how to get their money back?

Not many. They're totally gonna get away with it.

And just in case you still think this whole episode might really have just been a mistake, ask yourself what would have happened if some schlep would have sent the wrong data to Medicare with a result being that it cost CVS a million dollars by making them undercharge their customers.

That fictional sonuvabitch would have been fired the next day and you know it. And would most likely be working now for Rite-Aid, earning stellar performance reviews.

I'm not saying CVS deliberately ripped people off. But, yeah, it sure is a lot easier to make a "mistake" than it is to actually do more work. Or renegotiate your contract with Medco.

I report. You decide.

Thanks to JayPee, whose blog first tipped me off to this.

This One's For My Southern Baptist Friends, Who Make Up A Big Chunk Of The One-Third Of Americans Who Believe The Bible Is The Word Of God To Be Taken Literally



"And as for thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, whom thou shalt have; of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." -Leviticus 25:44

My Canadian slave's name is Ian. I've owned him for about five years now.

I remember thinking when I was born again that Vancouver would be a good place to shop for slaves. I love Vancouver, and I bought a small wooden totem pole sculpture there once that is absolutely beautiful. But then I realized that that fair city probably has the mildest climate and most cosmopolitan atmosphere in any of the provinces, which would mean that any slaves from there would probably be soft and weak. I wanted a slave from a place where life was a little tougher. Where nature and nurture would throw some character-building adversity into its residents. I also wanted a major airport though, because I thought the quicker I could get my slave away from Canada and into God's chosen land the better. I decided on Edmonton.

I saw Ian standing next to the cash register at the Eddie Bauer store in the Kingsway Mall. There's an old joke that the quickest way to get a roomful of Canadians to shut up is to say something like "please be quiet," so I looked at Ian and said "please follow me," and like a good Canadian, he did. That must by why God wants you to get your slaves from neighboring countries, so you don't have to mess with nets and whips and slave ships like when we got our slaves from Africa. I left $50 next to the cash register, but then realized that the onerous tax rates that Canadians must bear in order to finance their public health system would probably push Ian's final price to something like $75. Fucking socialists. I still thought I got a pretty good bargain though. Ian seemed like a strapping young lad, and was very obedient from the start.

It wasn't long though until I had a few second thoughts. Ian didn't seem to work nearly as hard as the Mexican slaves most of my friends had. I remember thinking that those Catholics south of the border wouldn't understand the covenant between man and God that the Holy Bible represents, being members of the Papist cult that they are. But boy, was I wrong. Every morning my neighbor's Mexican slaves would be up at the crack of dawn, mowing the yard, cleaning  the house, cooking breakfast, when it was all I could do to get Ian to wake up at noon, which only gave him two hours to get the condo ready for me when I got up. He's totally useless during the Stanley Cup finals, and I suspect he reveres Queen Elizabeth more than the prophet of God George W. Bush himself. The only thing he really turned out to be good for was running over to the liquor store to get more scotch.

Which after many months of prayer I realized was the only thing I  needed a slave for anyway. I've scoured Leviticus and the rest of God's book and I don't see anything there about any specific work your bondman is supposed to do, so I guess as long as I acquired him from a nation that is around me that makes it right with the Lord.

I still might put in a bid for my neighbor's Pedro though.