And then there’s this:
“The price of the lifesaving Covid-19 medication #Paxlovid will more than double in the coming months, drugmaker #Pfizer announced Wednesday. The change in list price comes as the US transitions from a system in which the government purchased the medication and provided it free to everyone to a more traditional commercial marketplace.
“The list price, before insurance, will be $1,390 for a five-day course, Pfizer said. That’s 2.6 times higher than the $530-per-course price paid by the US government, which provided Paxlovid free to patients during the pandemic.
“Covid-19 vaccines also increased in price as they went through a similar transition to a commercial market, rising about fourfold to between $115 to $130 per dose.
Some call it Peak Capitalism. But we’re way beyond that now. Others term it Capitalism Run Amuck. But again, way beyond that. I’ve heard Post Capitalism. Maybe…, but that could be too easily confusing.
I had it the other day…, the perfect term for where we are at this very moment (United States only, for lest we forget, being a new country, we are BEHIND the rest of the Western World in these matters i.e. Free Market Capitalism Versus Social Welfare…) Alas I forgot to make a note of the term I’d concocted. For now, let’s settle on Out Of Control Capitalism, and/or Weaponized Capitalism.
One thing we know for sure from history. It is only a matter of time before the masses that comprise 99% of any nation state’s population, unable to live even the most basic existences of dignity, rise up, revolt and tear the whole corrupt system crumbling down, murdering many a number of the 1% along the way. That’s History 101. This is the WHY behind Europe being so far ahead of us on the Social Welfare and Happiness scales. They’ve already been through this. Many of them multiple times. Let us hope there is something that be done in the form of a compromise between true democracy, social welfare, equality, basic human rights to lives of dignity and our more capitalist leanings.
As always, more later,
Ambassador