pick of the day

The outrageous prices of prescription drugs – and the ruinous cost of medical care generally – is one of the major hot-button issues in American politics. But the associated controversies seem to be losing much of their former intensity. Perhaps this is because a growing number of U.S. voters recognize they are damned no matter what – that unless they are exceptionally wealthy, they are going to be victimized by the health care system regardless of who is in charge. It is increasingly evident, for example, that socialized medicine will solve nothing -- that it would merely shift responsibility from a tyranny of greed to a tyranny of ideological self-righteousness, granting absolute and unlimited authority to a bureaucracy that is already infamous for vindictive enforcement of gender and race quotas -- note the well-documented discrimination against white male military veterans (and Caucasian males in general) by feminist-dominated social service agencies. But it is also ever more obvious that continued tolerance of the present, monopoly-ruled health care system merely reinforces the near-absolute power and authority of those who are responsible for its notorious abuses. Here is a gripping report on how drug makers sought to keep lucrative cold and diet remedies on the market even after their own study linked them to deadly and crippling strokes.