Medicare patients make good hostages. You’ve probably heard about this already, but maybe you weren’t aware of the extent, of just how ruthless the Bush Administration will get when it comes to propping up the pharmaceutical industry.

U.S. Customs has been seizing packages of prescription drugs mailed from Canadian pharmacies to American patients. So far, about 40,000 of these packages have been confiscated. Do you understand what this means?? 40,000 patients were waiting for their prescribed medication to arrive in the mail — and it never arrived.

What the fuck is going on here? Again, we’re not talking about a third world dictatorship. This isn’t Afghanistan or North Korea. This is happening right here, today, in the United States of America.

And in all its decency, the government doesn’t even inform these patients when their prescribed medication has been confiscated. That means 40,000 people were thinking “thank God my blood pressure medicine will be arriving tomorrow or the next day.” NOT!! Gotcha!!

How many lives have been endangered because somebody’s heart medicine never arrived? How many people have died from this? No deaths have been reported, but that might be because our lapdog “media” has been instructed to keep quiet about it.

Since patients aren’t informed when Big Brother confiscates steals their drugs, they presumably aren’t reimbursed for the cost either. Oh well, they didn’t need the money. Plus, they’re just old and in the way.

Whatever happened to that Culture of Life we keep hearing about?

Right now there’s an amendment to a Homeland Security appropriations bill which would prohibit Customs from using federal money to steal people’s prescription drugs. ::smirk:: Let’s see how long it’ll take for that amendment to be deleted during the next committee conference. The Drug Cartel will instruct their prostitutes to bend over and delete that pesky amendment, and that’ll be that.

Putting aside the cold-hearted ruthlessness and meanspirited-ness of the Drug Cartel and their prostitutes (and that’s not easy to do) — conservatives are trampling all over their favorite slogans.

Socialized Medicine. OOOOHHHH!!!! For decades that ominous-sounding phrase was trotted out whenever anyone suggested a safety net for people’s medical costs. Try to present a logical argument, and you’d be met with “Socialized Medicine?!?!?!?!?!?” End of discussion.

But Socialized Profits — hey, cool!

Also, there was something about a “Free Market” I think it was. Free enterprise, laissez-faire, build a better mousetrap, find a need and fill it — ring any bells? If Safeway is charging too much for avocados, people will go down the street to Albertson’s and buy them. Joe’s Hardware Store is charging too much for that toolkit you need? Shop around — Ace Hardware has it for less. Prescription drugs are too expensive in the U.S.? Get the exact same drugs from Canada and pay half the price.

For some reason, those first two examples are perfectly legal, even encouraged. They’re examples of what differentiates America from those Communist governments we were fighting for all those decades.

But that third free enterprise example is illegal. Anybody have a logical reason?