Text 17914, 99 rader
Skriven 2014-10-09 14:54:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av NANCY BACKUS
Ärende: health biz 91
=====================
 NB> I knew the first two were in auto, home nad life insurance, are they
 NB> in health as well, now...?! 

Liberty Mutual always has had a big health business, possibly
in part through partners and subsidiaries; last I checked the
policies were in that name. Travelers does or did under its
St. Paul division and perhaps other entities.

 ML> Re, and when your doctor screws up s/he is covered by BH
 ML> Specialty.
 NB> And you'd never even guess, seeing as they all have different names...
 NB> what lizards...  ;0

The whole business of insurance is to get the best possible
return for the least possible exposure, which means hiding
behind every rock in the desert, especially the luxurious
ones put up by the legislatures.

 ML> That sounds like a utopian view such as a child of the
 ML> '60s or '70s might espouse.
 NB> Hah.  Of course, the hospital administrators now are mostly children
 NB> of the '60s and '70s...

True, but hospital administrators are a lizard of a different
feather.

  And it comes from a bit of interaction
 NB> with a doctor friend of mine (I think you might have met him at church
 NB> when you visited, Elise), and watching the hospitals in our region. 
 NB> There's lots of competition, true, but also a lot of
 NB> cooperation/interaction.  And, of course, mergers....

Out here, even the mergers are troublesome. When I had my
latest heart procedure, the surgeon gleefully opined that
the reason it was necessary was because the previous one
had been botched - by another world-famous hospital owned
by the same group. 

 NB> Every time there's been any sort of issue, whether
 NB> doctor or insurance or store caused, they've gone over backwards to
 NB> get it resolved, and my usual reaction is, I DO love working with
 NB> Wegmans. Regularly good service, too, and some clerks that know you by
 NB> name,

It's the airline clerks who know me by name, not the
drugstore personnel!
 
 ML> Still, why do I need the aggravation when there are
 ML> over 30 CVSes within an hour's reach by public transport.
 NB> Might depend on how much aggravation the CVS causes on its own... ;)

I suppose.

 ML> Turns out the competitor is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the
 ML> manufacturer. But the specter of Ranbaxy is looking over the
 ML> chummy shoulders of those two; we'll see how that plays out.
 NB> Could be interesting..  ;)

More than ever, as Ranbaxy is being eaten up by Sun Pharma,
and Par Pharma (also with Indian and New Jersey facilities)
taking up some of the slack. Wait, there's more! The research
that was used to justify a patent on Exforge, a combination
of my medicine and amlodipine has been debunked, and I guess
I might have mentioned that Novartis is pushing yet another
cocktail with sacubitril with suspiciously similar research.

And now Novartis has announced that layoffs at the plant that
produces both Diovan and the generic version I buy will start
on December 1, with the plant to close altogether around the
end of 2016.
 
 ML> Quick Harvard Beets
 ML> cat: vegetable, Communist
 NB> And what made those communist...?  Being red...?  ;)

Joe McCarthy's "Kremlin on the Charles" remains the
most distinctive (if not particularly accurate) of
the monickers given that institution. That and the
school color, sports teams, and newspaper being
Crimson, of course.

Vitamin C martini
cat: booze
servings: 1

2 oz Belvedere orange vodka
splash Grand Marnier Centenaire
splash orange
splash Grenadine
splash Southern Comfort

Shake on ice. Serve in martini glass.
Garnish - blood orange slice

Cengiz Yildirim, Improper Bostonian 3/31/04

___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Check Out Doc's QWK Mail  Via Web BBS > DocsPlace.org  (1:123/140)