Okay I’m going to get off on a rant here. I had to have colonoscopy yesterday, and if you’ve ever had one you know that often the most difficult part of the process is doing the bowel cleanse the day before. To do this, doctors often prescribe a product called Halflytely®. 
HalfLytely® practically has a monopoly on the bowel prep market due the the fact that the patient only has to drink two liters of laxative solution and the competing products now carry an FDA warning for possible kidney damage. It’s a product that seems to effectively do it’s job; however my problem with it and the subject of this blog post has to do with its pricing. In fact I going to say that it is an outrageous case of pharmaceutical price gouging that borders on criminal. Especially if by not providing an affordable product for the uninsured that it becomes a barrier to a patient getting a colonoscopy.
The Halflyely® Package consists of a 2 liter plastic jug with a powdered mix of 210 g. of Polyethylene Glycol 3350 (Miralax Powder), 5.6 g of Sodium Chloride (salt), 2.86 g of Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda), and 0.74 g of potassium chloride (often prescribed as K-Lyte CL and available OTC as a potassium supplement). The Package also contains two 5 mg Bisacodyl tablets (available OTC as Ducolax tablets), and four flavor packets with artificial fruit flavors. Before I go and tell what it would cost me to put together an equivalent product, let me tell you what Braintree Labratories charges for their Halflytely ® product. 
If you are uninsured, it will cost you $64.99, in my case I have Aetna insurance and my co-pay was only $60. I was so surprised that I had to ask the pharmacist if he was sure that was the correct price, and he shook his head and said yes that’s what they charge.
Upon getting home and reading the ingredient list, I knew this was a perfect case of how Pharm labs rip off patients and insurance companies and it is a clear demonstration of why American healthcare costs are so obscenely out of control. So I went to the Halflytely® website and used the webmaster contact to write the following email:
“Dear Sirs
Why does your company charge $65 retail price for a bowel prep kit that contains less than $1 worth of chemicals and drugs?
Shame on you.
Best
–
Jay Shaffer”
Admittedly I should have researched out exactly the cost to produce and I hadn’t noticed the 210 g. (7.4 oz.) of Polyethylene Glycol 3350 listed on the bottle ingredients, but here is Braintree Laboratories’ email response:
“Thank you for your inquiry. Our product does not cost less than a dollar to make, where did you get this information? Other than that, we cannot control the insurance coverage or the pharmacy and wholesaler mark ups. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Thank you, have a nice holiday.”
So this brings me to my research into what it cost to produce a similar product with the same ingredients as the Halflytely® product.
Let’s start with the assumption that the lab’s cost are going to be less than mine just because they can purchase in quantity. But for my example I’ll buy medium quantities at retail prices and round up prices to the nearest cent.
So my total to make this product with ingredients bought at retail prices would be $11.34
By far the most expensive ingredient being Polyethylene Glycol 3350 @ $9.62.
I realize that Braintree Labs has marketing, packaging, and shipping cost and not to mention probably hundreds of lawyers (whom I expect I’ll hear from) to pay, But I’m also sure their manufacturing cost are well below my $11.34 figure. So this is still something on the order of 300% retail mark-up.
So in the end what can I do about being ripped-off by these greedy pharmaceuticals beside exercise my first amendment right free speech? Not much, except perhaps to inform my doctors as to what they are prescribing. But I hope that other bloggers will take these greedy companies to task by shining a flashlight of truth into their dark world whenever they find that price gouging is taking place.
I also run the Mac Audio Guy website with has a wealth of information, tips and techniques for Mac audio professionals and enthusiest. Unfortunately, evil hackers did a Wordpress code injection attack on the site, where it substituted it’s own links in Google Ad Sense code. This led to my site being de-listed by Google.
Being de-listed by Google is a death blow to a traffic dependent Website like Mac Audio Guy. I went from hundreds of visitors a day to none. In an attempt to remedy the attack and de-lising, I had to do a complete rebuild of the website and instituted more security measures, which have cost me a great deal of time and headache. I’ve reapplied to Google for re-listing and my only hope to keep the website alive is to be re-listed. I can only hope.
This has me shocked, dismayed and angry on a couple of fronts:
1. Scumbag asshat hackers. You think you’re smart, but you are hurting people. I hope that develop a rash that will never let you sleep again and that your genitalia fall off.
2. Google, while it professes to do no evil, has way too much power over peoples livelihoods. Any website that is de-listed by Google is effectively non-existent. Google is effectively the sole dictator of the internet, there need to be checks and balances on it’s powers.
The hard cold fact that I made more money in the game Second Life, than in real life this week is kinda sobering. It’s not like I haven’t been working, I just haven’t been working for real money.
Last week, I wrote and edited a four page proposal for a producer job with a cable sports network and did a Keynote presentation for the same proposal ( the first time I worked with Keynote.)
I did both stereo mix and (my first real) surround mix for “The Fence.” “The Fence” is a three minute trailer for an indie film project. I offered to work on the project pro-bono with the understanding that I will get paid to do the real film. I was originally “hired ” on as sound editor. But I became more deeply involved in the post production process and now I’m credited as Post-Production Supervisor. This is because I designed the DVD art work and put together the DVD project, also last week. Oh, and I shuffled the project back and forth to the colorist (the guy that color-corrects the video.) You can see “The Fence” trailer at: http://riseandflyproductions.com/
I also recorded and published a new podcast about the Zoom H4 recorder on the MacAudioGuy.com site, and updated the CSS on this site. Worked on my Linkedin Profile and Twittered a couple hours away. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m putting together a design portfolio page for an important job interview on Wednesday.
In Second Life, I did a custom Photoshop “skin” for my formula race car model for a client and was paid 10,000 Lindens (about $30), I did a three hour stint as announcer for the audio and video recoding of the Formula SL race on Saturday and then DJed for two and a half hours on Sunday for 1800 Lindens (about $7).
So, you can see why I’m a great workaholic but a lousy entrepreneur. Let’s just hope I have a great interview on Wednesday.
I’m somewhat hesitant to write this post, for fear of the RIAA goon squad. But sometimes you’ve got to say “fuck it” and just go for what you think is right, even in the face of legal intimidation. I’m hypothetically testing the waters at being an internet broadcaster.
I am renting a streaming server for my Second Life DJ and MC gigs and so whenever I’m not broadcasting an event into SL, I thought I’d go ahead and look into streaming the music I love for anyone to listen to. And that got me toying with the idea of really running an internet radio station. It is not a good time to have these thoughts because the RIAA and their puppet enforcement arm, SoundExchange are out to kill small webcasters.
SoundExchange sets the prices on performance royalty payments for cable, satellite, and internet music broadcasters. Currently they are charging internet broadcasters 500% what traditional radio is paying and 200% of what cable and Satellite are paying. Currently that rate is a $500 dollar a year fee plus $.18 per 100 listeners per song. And at 15 songs per hour that comes to about $23,652.00 a year per 100 listeners. And remember this is not covering the publishing rights which are enforced by ASCAP/BMI. Thats another whole fee and payment structure. ASCAP and BMI rates start at $288 flat annual fee plus $.0006 per listener hour. So if I had 100 listeners on average 24/7 that would be another $525.60. So basically to be legal for a mere 100 listener web stream I’d have to pay over $30,000 just for musical rights licenses. Thats not including server rentals, or the computer hardware to broad cast or the actual purchasing of music to broadcast.
Think about this for asecond and you’ll see that it would cost me over $300 per listener per year. Who’s gioing to pay $300 a year to listen to net radio. Adverisers aren’t because they are only reaching 100 listeners, and Listeners aren’t going to contribute that much. the average donation to public radio is only about $60 per person that donates and only about 10% of public radio listeners donate
So you can see why I’m not going to mention the address of my hypothetical radio station.
I have a good friend and colleague by the name of George Sanger, AKA The Fatman. That’s him over on the left. Besides being talented and charismatic, George is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met. He has this theory that he calls Good/Bad, this isn’t a really new theory, in fact it’s basically Taoism , or at least the Yin/Yang part of Taoism.
Simply stated, no event or thing is wholly bad or good. In fact most things are an almost equal mixture of both. I’m not a verbose writer, so I’m not going to bore you with lots of examples, suffice it to say that from any “bad” event , like getting laid-off, may grow a “good” event like a better job, or personal growth.
Don’t confuse this with fatalism, fatalism would say that every bad thing happens for a reason, and I can’t accept that premise. Good/Bad is more about causality. The reign of a tyrant fosters the revolution.
This blog post came about because as I looked back over the last few post in this blog, I realized that they may seem dark and sad to some. But in fact that’s not the case at all. Life flows past us in it’s own Good/Bad way and I go through making my Good/Bad choices that lead to my own Good/Bad results. It’s all Good/Bad.
If you want to find out more about George Sanger, go to http://fatman.com/ be sure to check out the FAQ page for some of his great stories.
If you Google Jay Shaffer,there are three other Jay Shaffers that have some internet notoriety. There’s the chef that owns the Shaffer City Oyster Bar and Grill in New York City, then there is the business consultant, who runs the “Jay Shaffer Speaks Out ” website, and then there is the gay porn author and “actor.” This Jay has wrote such classics as “Wet Dreams” and “Full service” and is apparently bearish on short films.
Unfortunately, since I also authored a book (on Mac music software,) if you click on my author profile on Amazon, it appears that I also authored the afore mentioned fiction novels.
Just to set the record strait (pun intended,)Â Jay M. Shaffer (that’s me) has only written one book so far and it has nothing to do with men’s smoldering desires, unless those desires are to make music using Apple’s GarageBand software.
As for the other two Jays, I would love to exchange recipes with the chef and learn how to avoid the poor house from the business consultant.
I wonder why anyone would would be interested in my blog, because I’m too oriented to thinking what I’m doing is interesting. I communicate what I’m doing rather than what I’m thinking about. I hope that I can make it more intellectually engaging soon.
People often ask the question but don’t want to hear the answer. you don’t want to hear that I’ve got this irksome skin rash that is driving me fucking nuts and in between trying to scratch that spot on my back that I cant reach I’m typing this blog entry in my boxer shorts. You don’t want to hear that I went to the dentist yesterday for a routine cleaning and that they decided to get Guantanomo on my ass. Why do they say “you may feel some discomfort” why don’t they just have some dude just come in and punch you in the jaw, the result is the same.
So how am I? Just fine, and you?
Secondly, Am I sooo wrong not to be in the mood to go to a St. Patty’s party tonight. Friday is the last night of the week I want to go out. First of all It’s an amateur night, both cops and drunks are on the roads. I don’t drink and drive so that means I going to a party and watch people drink and have fun until it’s way past my bedtime and then I’ve got to try to drag my wife home before she’s ready.
Sorry, but I’d much rather sit here and scratch, drink a glass of Cab, and type at the machine. Woot!
