I wish there were more patients like you who actually wanted generics. The way I figure, the more [insurance company] money is wasted on a more expensive drug that does the same thing as a cheaper generic drug, the less money is available to treat another patient (whose care then got denied by the insurer); or the sooner that insurer will raise rates and cause another employer to drop insurance coverage for their "team members". Unfortunately, for a large of patients, the only question they have is "Will my insurance cover it?", and if the answer is yes, then they don't care about the cost.
Cytoman -- I have to disagree with your assertion that your doctor didn't know what a standard deviation was. Your own account of the original story belies what you are saying. You said he wanted your blood sugar within 1 standard deviation of the mean. He had the essence of it when he told you that meant that the test value was within the first 1/3 of the values off the mean. As you know, the 1st standard deviation has approximately 1/3 of the values above the mean and 1/3 of the values below the mean. So what did you really want him to say. Did you want him to write you a formula?
Your endocrinologist just wanted to make sure your blood sugar wasn't too high. You wanted to talk about standard deviations.
He probably wanted to talk about making sure your diet was OK and your medications were at the right dose etc. Weren't those the things that were supposed to really matter at your appointment?
I wish there were more patients like you who actually wanted generics. The way I figure, the more [insurance company] money is wasted on a more expensive drug that does the same thing as a cheaper generic drug, the less money is available to treat another patient (whose care then got denied by the insurer); or the sooner that insurer will raise rates and cause another employer to drop insurance coverage for their "team members". Unfortunately, for a large of patients, the only question they have is "Will my insurance cover it?", and if the answer is yes, then they don't care about the cost.
Cytoman -- I have to disagree with your assertion that your doctor didn't know what a standard deviation was. Your own account of the original story belies what you are saying. You said he wanted your blood sugar within 1 standard deviation of the mean. He had the essence of it when he told you that meant that the test value was within the first 1/3 of the values off the mean. As you know, the 1st standard deviation has approximately 1/3 of the values above the mean and 1/3 of the values below the mean. So what did you really want him to say. Did you want him to write you a formula?
Your endocrinologist just wanted to make sure your blood sugar wasn't too high. You wanted to talk about standard deviations.
He probably wanted to talk about making sure your diet was OK and your medications were at the right dose etc. Weren't those the things that were supposed to really matter at your appointment?
You don't like this? --- Well then send your comments to the lawyer for Bank Julius Baer, a Mr. Evan N. Spiegel at mailto:espiegel@lavelysinger.com
If you don't agree with Sophos, why not tell it directly to their analyst who wrote the article, Graham Cluley. Here is his email gcluley@sophos.com