Tymeg

Holy crap!  I didn't know that.  And I was today years old when I learned that Columbia House started in 1955...

I had no idea they were around back then either. But that cover just shows how much this country's culture has shifted...

Today I learned that there is a company in NJ that imports coca leaves to extract the flavor for some soda company, and the good stuff gets sent to another company for pain management medications...

And I followed the trail to the other company and am not surprised by their actions. They sold a vial of one of their drugs for $40 in 2001. Today, that same drug with no changes costs $42,703...

Oh don't get me started on freaking pharmaceutical companies.  Caroline's dad had a dog that was diabetic and needs insulin twice a day.  He was of course retired and on limited fixed income.  The insulin that the vet prescribed was $160 each month.  I had heard from friends that insulin was just expensive anyway so never thought much about it until I needed to refill so had the vet transfer the script to my pharmacy.  The pharmacist mentioned that there was a generic version and asked if I wanted to switch.  I checked with the vet and he said ok, generic was fine.  WhyTF did you keep her dad on the branded that was $140 per month more than the generic.  Needless to say, he's not Tucker's vet anymore...  Fukken drug companies suck.  That really needs to change here.

This country really needs to pull its head out of its ass and join the other 32 civilized countries and adopt universal healthcare. It'd solve a lot of issues. When you hear stories from other people in the world when they had an accident, landed in the emergency room with a couple busted bones and the biggest expense was when their significant other picked them up and had to pay the $5 parking fee. Or hearing an American traveling abroad with their kid and the kid gets violently ill, goes to the emergency room, gets treated and prescribed some medicine and now on checkout the administrator very apologetically explains that since they're not a citizen they'll have to pay the full price for services and it'll be a lot. The bill was $40. And yet the math has been done here that shows even with increased taxes, the working class citizen would still be paying less out of pocket because those multiple thousand dollars worth of premiums would no longer be taken out. But the "muh freedum" crowd hoots and hollers way too loudly about the "guberment taken my hard earned money and givin it to da poors"...

Yeah, I gotta agree with you about universal healthcare, it just makes sense.  On one of my trips to Mexico I got really sick.  I was going there for a week every month or so for a couple of years so it's not like I didn't know how to eat safe.  But my guess was that bottled water at the restaurant wasn't entirely filtered bottled water.  In any case, I was out for a couple of days and ended up in the hospital to get some meds, an IV, and back on my feet again.  And even that bill was pretty cheap...

And Mexico just recently adopted universal healthcare. Before you know it, they'll be putting up a wall to keep Americans out...

I know someone that goes to Mexico to get medical procedures done because of how much cheaper they are, plus they'll do things there that aren't quite legal here...

Going down there could be an adventure. "We've got some good news and some bad news. First, the good news; the procedure was a success. Now the bad news... and you're not going to like this, but we're going to need you to deliver a package back to the states - and guess where you'll be storing it...?"

Kinda like that gold watch in Pulp Fiction...

Pic related - one time I was getting back to my hotel in Mexico City and we pull up and there are a bunch of police fully decked out in gear that wouldn't let anyone in the hotel.  It was a little hotel and only had about five rooms, but one of the rooms had some minor drug lord holed up in it.  AFAIK no one died, I didn't hear any shots fired, but it was kind of freaky to know this is the hotel that I always stayed at, it was for long term stays, and in the next room some shit was going down....

Dang, that's kinda terrifying. I don't know if I'd be able to sleep that night. But what's up with your photo? Looks like the female officer should be on a pair of skis...

Yeah, I saw that too.  There wasn't a female officer at the hotel so I can't comment if the uniforms are that different or something else is the root cause.  But there are plenty of stories from those trips that might be questionable here in the states...

I'm pretty sure Mexico has a different set of rules than us...

(my property up north is 47 miles away from here - Tuckerman is still on the bucket list)

Alas, that one is no longer on my bucket list.  The last time I went skiing was the winter I moved down here.  But I did get to ski out west once, and it wasn't all that great.  The lines were horrendous and the powder is difficult to ski in if you're used to what we have here on the east coast.  Straight downhill is slow, turning is slow and hard, and maybe the muscles weren't used to leaning back as much as I had to...