Broken Values...

It's been almost a month since I've gotten off the trail this year.

The past few weeks have been a blur. I've hidden out from the world, wrestled internally with all of my decisions made so far, and have tried to catch up on sleeping and eating. It's only been this week that I've started answering emails, phone calls and have started to transition back into the real world, only to leave it again next month when I return to the trail. I have visited a department store or two, but nothing could have prepared me for a visit to someplace I hadn't been in over a year... Costco.

Now while that may not seem drastic to you, consider that for the past 4 months, the average store that I've seen, with the exception of a supermarket or two, has been a small 'mom and pop' grocery or 'General Dollar" or some other limited general store. Costco was huge, and loud, stacked high with electronics, giant boxes of 3-Musketeers, paper towels and 36-packs of croissants. People with glazed eyes wandered around the store like zombies pushing large, wide shopping carts and filling them with huge boxes of bulk merchandise with the justification that they are saving money by buying in bulk. Now this is true, but many of these people were rather large, showing that they are also eating in bulk.

I was captivated almost immediately, as was Costco's intention, by the stack of large plasma televisions I was herded through immediately as I entered the store - In just 4 months, high definition screens had become thinner and less expensive and the good folks at Costco conveniently loaded several of them on carts in case I just wanted to 'drive' one to the nearest cashier, pay for it, take it home and start 'slothing' out on the gross of Ring Dings that I was meant to have purchased at the same time.

I fought the urges to buy some camera memory, in part because I really didn't need it but also because I didn't have the money. Costco and other big box bulk stores are as much about impulse buying as they are about buying sensibly. Instead, I walked with my wife to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription. You see, Costco offers better deals on many prescriptions than your convenient, square corner drug store. While I was waiting for the prescription to be filled, I inquired on the cost of my ADHD medication which I have not had in months because of the cost and because I don't have insurance at the moment. $118.00 I was told. "$118.00? Are you shitting me?" It had already gone up another $20.00 since I left for the trail.

This really, really angered me, as if our health care system in this country didn't already do that. Here I am, in Costco, the Mecca of decadence, surrounded by every type and class of product you can imagine at the lowest prices possible, and a month's worth of my prescription costs more than a flat panel monitor for a computer.

So it hit me.

While the prices of all these laptop computers, books, DVDs, tools, pool tables, filing cabinets, water coolers, lawn mowers, digital cameras, bug zappers and other shit that most people don't need keep dropping every day, the prices of the things that they DO need like medications go up in price. What the hell is that? How come our country, the richest in the free world with the most potential and resources for taking care of its citizens, places more emphasis on greed and capitalism than on the well-being of the people who live there? As for my medication, I could work harder for that extra $118.00/month or for better insurance to make the prescription cost less, but there are plenty of other people...people you know or perhaps yourself that can't. That just plain sucks in 2006.

When I got home, without either a new 60-inch high definition TV or a 2,000-count jug of Rolaids, I looked up a couple studies that showed that the wholesale cost of my medication was around $3.00. Now I want you think about that for a moment. Please.

Ok, so that's a markup of oh, around 4000%. Do they really need to make 4000% profit? What if they made 2000% or even 1000%? 1000%, now that's reasonable considering that the profit for merchandise in a store is around 40%, or less with electronics. Computer manufacturers are thriving on profits of 2% or 3% in some cases, and they still have huge facilities, large payrolls and management perks, and they still can fund R&D. But drug manufacturers and their drug store partners in crime are reaping huge profits from the ills of you and I, funded by the insurance industry which pays these high prices without question. Who gets screwed? I do, YOU do, the people you love do, by our having to pay higher insurance premiums. The drug manufacturers and drug companies don't want you well, they want you sick so you will buy more medicine. Think about it... please. Because while my ADHD medicine isn't something that can mean the difference between life or death, the meds that others aren't taking who can't afford them are.

I stopped looking for information about this because I was too disgusted. Michael Moore, whether you like him or not, is working on a new movie called "Sicko" which is about the health care industry in this country. No doubt the health care industry is already working on damage control as evidenced by the increasing numbers of commercials showing how their profits are being put to good use to fund research. To that end, I have to ask, what good is research to make better drugs if people can only afford them with insurance. And then I ask, what good is insurance, if people can't afford it. According to the U.S. Census, in 2004, 12.7% of U.S. citizens lived below the poverty line. That's 38 million people, folks. And 15% of U.S. citizens do NOT have health insurance. That's 45 million people. 45 million people in the richest country in the world do not have health insurance. That really sucks.

About the only thing these people can afford, is a 60 inch plasma TV.

Is it any wonder why someone would want to leave all this crap behind and go walk in the woods for six months?

MuddyShoes