And, to conclude Rant week we have ......Opioid wars!

My BBF is in a lot of pain because of injuries she's incurred from falling because of her disabilities.   However, she can't get through to her doctors that she actually does need more pain pills to get through 24 hours.  I see her and know her very well, and this woman has never even smoked marijuana, or cigarettes, but they are afraid she'll become addicted to pain pills?  She's not going to get better, anytime soon if ever, and SO WHAT if she gets addicted to something that makes her life bearable?  She needs enough medication to have a little bit of a quality to her life!  Kaiser,  YOU SUCK!   It doesn't shock me that we have an "Epidemic".

And this clip from the article linked below is only tangentially applicable to my BFF's problems with bone headed HMOs but it is somewhat related to it.


From the Washington Post Article HERE:  Italics are mine.

"Policymakers often speak as if the epidemic* will be over as soon as we tackle both legal and illegal opioids. Better control of opioids is essential, but, even without opioid deaths, there would still be as many or more deaths from suicide and liver diseases. Opioids are like guns handed out in a suicide ward; they have certainly made the total epidemic much worse, but they are not the cause of the underlying depression. We suspect that deaths of despair among those without a university degree are primarily the result of a 40-year stagnation of median real wages and a long-term decline in the number of well-paying jobs for those without a bachelor’s degree. Falling labor force participation, sluggish wage growth, and associated dysfunctional marriage and child-rearing patterns have undermined the meaning of working people’s lives as well."

Real wages are stagnated at the level of those in 1972.   I know this to be true because I lived through the whole span of the war on the American Worker, and watched it happening.  Food and shelter became increasingly expensive in the ensuing years.  Except, of course, for fast food.  Clothing, due to the manufacturing job flight to other countries, became less.  But it wasn't enough to make up for the raise in other necessary expenditures.

*the epidemic spoken of here is the so called Opiate epidemic that is all over the Media.

You can fool a lot of people, a lot of the time, but you can't fool Moms....