Food or Medicine?

Last week I wrote about the greedy Pharmaceutical industry and how they are fighting an initiative that would allow people to buy cheaper prescription drugs in California. The pharmaceutical companies have promised to spend whatever it takes to defeat the initiative and have a weaker counterproposal they are pushing to confuse the voters.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies are making record profits. Over the past decade, drug companies have had median returns on investment of 18.5% - 5.6 times the median Fortune 500 rate.

The high cost of drugs has meant that the elderly poor have sometimes had to choose between food or medicine. In 2003, the Prescription Drug Bill was passed to help ease the financial burden for the elderly poor.

Well, it turns out they may still have to make the choice between food and medicine anyway. The Bush Administration announced yesterday that elderly people will loose some of their food stamps when they sign up for the prescription drug benefit provided by the Medicare drug plan.

It turns my stomach and infuriates me to see how Bush has gone after the elderly. First he goes after Social Security and now this.

Some have argued that Karl Rove, the mastermind behind the Bush administration, is distracting the left with an attack on Social Security but his real goal is to take down Medicare. Could be.