Self Medicating in the Time of Total Capitalist Health Care

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From City of Angels on AlterNet today:)

It started as a joke, I’d say:

Yeah I can’t afford health insurance, and I might die early as a result but there’s medical marijuana at the corner store and Viagra on the internet, so at least I’ll die happy. That joke was at the end of a column I wrote three years ago about going to free clinics with “blood in the stools” and still never getting any diagnostic work done. I’m still waiting for County to call me with an appointment for a colonoscopy, I’ve been waiting more than a year. I’ve since moved out of that County…

An email today from Reading Glasses Shopper featured the “John Lennon Full-Frame Reader” as a Friday Find for $8 until midnight today only. I would buy a pair, but the Lennon Reader only goes up to 3.5 strength and I’m shopping for 4.0 or higher. Still I’m happy to see another thriving business selling medical care online that people used to get from doctors, as it’s all I’ve got…

A good six years ago when my daughter and I were homeless, I used up my last set of contact lenses and discovered that the reading glasses you buy at a Walgreens type store will suffice when you can’t afford the optometrist. My eyes seem to have adjusted to the 4.0 strength glasses I’ve been able to find online where some pairs go all the way up to 7.00 in magnifying strength. The strongest glasses you can find in drugstores is 3.25 if you’re lucky. I think there’s some concern somewhere that keeps chain retailers from selling reading glasses stronger than 3.25 but online you can prescribe yourself all the way to total blindness.

It is kind of scary.

I mean, in twenty years, will the USA be full of blind people with cataracts and glaucoma and other disease that could have been treated? Like a third world country, fourth world?

The ads on TV for prescription drugs today are truly unprecedented. I mean a 60 second commercial where 45 seconds are spent telling you all the side effects you might encounter if you take this drug, and the other drugs that you might be ... (Continue reading new post: Self Medicating in the Era of Total Capitalist Health Care on City ofAngels on AlterNet this morning.)

Posting this at AlterNet got me a trackback to this video about the health care system in France: