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So what then is a Republican?

So what then is a Republican? This question has come up since I have been weeded out by the core, extreme Republicans, as they have found my ideology wanting. I expressed the need for this country to finally solve the problem of caring for its sick, and doing away with the ugly for-profit health care "system" that exists currently, replacing it with a single-payer system and thus saving our country billions of dollars, and millions of lives. How do we define Republicanism? By the core? Should we allow it to be encircled by the focused interiority of those most fervent--and most fanatical? Should those who do not adhere to every single jot and tittle of the party platform hang our heads and retreat to the desert region of our foes? (And would they admit us, or also vanquish us as not being suitable for their use either?) Does fanaticism define the party unit, or something more reasonable, something more rationally defined? Let me consider for a bit the following position: Repu...
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Bad bugs the new white meat? As reported by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times recently (Sun, Mar 15 th , "Pathogens in Our Pork), hog farms are now infected with the dangerous bug known as MRSA (pronounced " Mersa "). As estimated by the University of Minnesota, up to 39 percent of pigs on hog farms harbor the superbugs which are resistant to almost all forms of antibiotics. (More people die from MRSA in the United States than from HIV.) Why? Same reason as why doc's give out prescriptions to treat viral infections like colds and ear infections: mis -use of antibiotics. As Kristof writes, more antibiotics are given to livestock in North Carolina alone than goes to treat the entire U.S. population. This is all due to the tremendous leverage that the agribusinesses have on Washington politicoes . The citizenry is being plowed under for the sake of increasing the yield of hog, cow and chicken farmers. It's as if the Congress is doing as Marie Antoinette, s...
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Change? Who needs change?

  When the status quo works so well, I mean. That's the impression I get when I visit the government affairs section of APhA, the site for the American Pharmacists Association. On the docket for the Advocacy Agenda is … Single-payer insurance? No. Health care reform of any sort? Nope. How about controlled substance policy and medguide management? Well, of course. You know, the really important things. After all, we need to nip these medguides in the bud. In…the…bud! We're bud nippers at APhA, that's what we are (apologies to Barney Fife). Why doesn't APhA get it? Not sure. I suppose they might be afraid their members could be on the short end of the stick (again), but if that is so it seems to me that the smart course of action would be to get in on the ground floor and advocate for change that benefits pharmacy. And change is coming, sure as shootin'. APhA might also like the existing system. Nah. No one likes this system short of the insurance companies. So what ...
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