It truly is "A Matter of Life or Death."

Agreed. But Larry, do you believe that nowadays there is any issue on which both the left and the right can come to an agreement? Even if it's for something that we all should agree needs to be done? Not to be too negative about this, but any politician who would agree wouldn't be doing it just to get votes, and that's pretty much all that motivates those klowns.

And (hopefully) not to drag this into partisanship, but would the left entertain the notion of cutting back some other programs to fund something like this? Do you think they should have to? There's so much waste and fraud in federal spending that even a tiny bit of effort to curb waste and fraud should result in being able to fund things like this.

How would you recommend expanding he Orphan Drug Act? I don't know enough about the specifics to discuss it in a meaningful way.

Years ago I took a Myers-Briggs assessment and training course as part of a Leadership Training Seminar. The Meyers-Briggs assessment measures 8-traits. For example, introversion versus extroversion. It not only tells you whether or not you are one or the other, but also gives point scores to tell you the degree to which that trait is present. Your score tells you why you feel what you feel, thus do what you do. It also tells you why you see people the way you see them. For example, the group I took my course with were Federal Managers at the GS-13 and above level. Unlike their private sector counterparts, these folks tend to be more introverted than extroverted. That is because Federal jobs tend to be more technical, having no salespersons, bartenders and other jobs that attract many extroverts. In a group of people the most introverted person will see all other people as extroverted, compared to them. I was not the most extroverted person in the group. But, I was a professional communicator which made me more likely to speak up in exercises. I am moderately extroverted. There was an older woman who spoke up when specifically asked questions who was the most extroverted person in our group. The lesson here is, "What people perceive you to be is as important as what you truly are, and their perception is based on what they are."

I said all that to say this, I am a moderately liberal Democrat. I have lived through the extreme Left-Wing Violence of the Weather Underground and others in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and I did not like that any more than I like the 1-6-21 riot, and related activism. But, when I interact with people who I perceive to be probably moderate Republicans, I am called upon to justify "BLM Looters," or Ray Epps, even if the subject is not in the same ballpark as those subjects. For the record, I went through Army Basic Training with 200-inner city LA guys who had Juvenile felonies on their records related to the 1965 "Watts Riots." They volunteered to be drafted with the guarantee of a clean record if they could get an an Honorable Discharge. My opinion about looters is the same as theirs. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Stealing someone else's stuff has nothing to do with civil disobedience." The reason those of us "Moderate Lefties," don't spend a lot of time finding "Common Ground," with "Moderate Righties," is because MAGA has spent hundreds of millions keeping that from happening.

That assessment sounds similar to what my Dad used to tell me HP did back in the day. They categorized their employees by four major personality traits (driver, analytical, amiable, expressive) and then each trait was also assigned another of those as a 'sub-trait' for lack of a better way to say it. My Dad was always a "Driver Driver", so while he got things done quickly and efficiently, he often had personality clashes with Expressives who didn't like his all business, feelings don't matter approach.

"The lesson here is, "What people perceive you to be is as important as what you truly are, and their perception is based on what they are." "

I can agree that how a person (or event) is perceived is the same as reality for some. Personality-wise, the most liberating thing in my life has been not only thinking, but knowing/believing that what others think of me doesn't matter. However, while that can lead to an 'it's their problem not mine' attitude, only an idiot would not at least take into account how others perceive him in certain situations.

"I said all that to say this, I am a moderately liberal Democrat."

Shall I alert the local media? Man bites dog! Sorry Larry, sometimes I can't help but be snarky (see my last comment about perception...) In my younger days, I considered myself a moderate liberal. However, the definition of liberal has abandoned me, even though I never abandoned it.

"The reason those of us "Moderate Lefties," don't spend a lot of time finding "Common Ground," with "Moderate Righties," is because MAGA has spent hundreds of millions keeping that from happening."

Okay, back to being serious. I think this statement illustrates an over-dependence on media for information. They have grown quite accustomed to lying to us Larry, in case you didn't pick up on that. And sure, some righty whack jobs here on imgflip may do to you what you described, but if you follow my attitude about perception, it won't bother you one bit.

Okay, I'll officially apologize and and take back my previous comment (can't even remember precisely what it was) that questioned you being a liberal whack. We may not agree on a majority of things, but you're clearly a thoughtful person, who reasons out his opinions. So while I may not agree with a lot of them, I can respect them because of how you came about holding them.

The "Orphan Drug Act," guarantees that needed drugs will be available. It may involve giving a small tax break to finding a smaller company operating on a smaller margin to assume production. I broke this out of my longer message, so it would not get lost in my overly verbose feedback.

I know what the Orphan Drug Act is, but I was mostly curious what you would suggest congress do to improve it, since your meme mentioned something about congress needing to expand it. I'd still be curious what your thoughts are about that, because I agree that it's very important. But I don't know enough about it to make specific recommendations.

I don't believe that govt needs to be involved in most of what it sticks its big-ass nose into, but I do believe that there are certain things for which the govt needs to take a leading role, and this is one of them. Capitalism, for all it's positive traits, falls short many times in doing what's best for smaller groups within the overall population, because (obviously) there may not be sufficient profit in doing so. Big pharma is for profit (there's the duh statement of the century, hey?) so without some kind of incentive, usually tax break related, they won't produce drugs that some folks need to stay alive. And anyone with an ounce of humanity would have to agree that those people have a right to their life. So I'm with you there.

The whole notion of "Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement," being the key to balancing the budget is a joke. It was foisted on the American people by Ronald Reagan, "Mr. Borrow and Spend" himself. I worked for the VA for 30-years. Everything we did was proscribed by law. And the laws had priority lists of which groups of Veterans were eligible in what order, until the money ran out. People, including some who passed the laws establishing priority lists gave us grief if we did not treat a Veteran who was low on the priority list. These were almost always Veterans with no service-connected disability who had private health insurance. I never received or got a complaint for giving someone care before their eligibility group was funded. The VA on average cost one-third of what the same care cost in the Private Sector. We were thrifty. Remember when Social Security was given legal permission to negotiate drugs at a bulk discount? The VA has done that for decades. In fact, the VA had and has a cost cutting program that awards employees for finding better, and cheaper ways of doing things. I received several of small awards, myself many years before Reagan's presidency.

Sorry for my delayed reply, Larry.

"The whole notion of "Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement," being the key to balancing the budget is a joke"

Hardly. The US federal govt is the most inefficiently run organization in the world. Yes, just my opinion, but... as the Big Guy would say, come on man!

"It was foisted on the American people by Ronald Reagan,"

Careful Larry, I don't trash lib icons... well, not without cause! 🤣

"I worked for the VA for 30-years. Everything we did was proscribed by law."

And I work for a govt regulated company, and everything we do is "proscribed by law" as well (I think you're misusing "proscribed" but your point is clear...) and as such, nothing is prescribed to be fiscally efficient. Instead, it actually fosters *more* wastefulness, imo, of taxpayer money due to being bound to process that cannot be easily improved. Think about what I just said. If you're objective you should realize I'm correct. Even your own example doesn't illustrate efficiency, but just a process; one that is not synonymous with fiscal efficiency.

"The VA on average cost one-third of what the same care cost in the Private Sector. We were thrifty."

Given your expertise regarding the VA, I will not dispute this claim. However, stop and think about it for a moment; you're comparing the VA to another incredibly poorly run (fiscally) monstrosity; the US healthcare system. Not much a bar to clear.

By no means do I intend to impugn your statements about how the VA ran while you were there. But like any large organization, individual departments may be run differently. I also won't impugn the efforts you made to be fiscally efficient, because as a taxpayer I truly appreciate such efforts. However, most large organizations, at least superficially, foster that type of effort from their employees, perhaps sincerely or sometimes just for public relations purposes. All of that notwithstanding, and also pointing out that the VA is a tiny percentage of the overall US budget, I stand by my statement that the US govt (adding "on the whole" now...) is an inefficiently run organization, particularly fiscally.

note: per the ever reliable google, when asked "VA's budget as a percentage of the overall US budget?", the answer was: "In 2022, spending for programs that support veterans totaled $272 billion, or about 4 percent of all federal spending." Sounds about right, but I'm not an expert, nor did I check it any further. You probably would know better if that's incorrect.

I meant "proscribed," because we were talking about efficiencies. For example, after the Affordable Care Act," was passed the rationale for treating a large number of Veterans no longer existed. If a Veteran does not receive "Service-Connected," status should not get care at VA. But the law that made them eligible proscribes cutting them off and making them get on the rolls of "Obamacare."

The West LA VA Medical Center has about 900-acres of land in excess to its needs. It is proscribed from selling this land, valued at $10 million an acre, by a law the Brentwood Homeowners Association got a bi-partisan group to pass. That law created "Waste and Mismanagement," and is a "Fraud," in my opinion.

The budget amount for VA is the Healthcare component. Cemeteries, Compensation and Educaton, cost about $30-billion more.

I was thinking about it, and concluded that I shouldn't have said anything about the way you used "proscribed", because as I mentioned, I felt your meaning was clear. Although, since you've now provided context with a good example, my understanding of what you said has changed, so maybe it was worthwhile after all? I still think it wasn't correct to use it the way you did, because you said "I work for a govt regulated company, and everything we do is "proscribed by law" as well". So my take on that is that you were speaking in a very general way, that everything you do is forbidden by law, since proscribed means to forbid, usually by law. But if you're just trying to say that you deal with a lot of restrictions to what might seem like common sense, I get it. I think I'm pretty clear about your meaning.

But Larry, I'm not really all that interested in that. (not that you should give a rat's rear what I'm really interested in...) I asked twice what you would suggest to improve the Orphan Drug Act. It's the entire point of your meme, and since meme's by their very nature are notorious for lacking specifics, I wanted to hear some more about your ideas to "expand" the laws. It's okay if you don't want to go there, because obviously nobody can force you to discuss it if you don't want to. I was just curious about your thoughts on that.

Including the cancer and neurology drugs that are in short supply would be the expansion I was thinking of. I am sorry to be confusing in my reply. I have no ideas for changing how the program works.

No worries Larry. I'm not some braindead reporter who's trying to grill you. Whatever thoughts you have are all I was interested in. I would agree with this, and like I said in my original reply, I agree with the sentiment of your meme.

LOL... Larry, you really need to research Big Pharma's legal history... you know the one where they've been sued for all those harmful drugs...

About 11,000-Americans die from non-opioid prescription deaths each year. More than 4-times that amount are killed by firearms. Our "well-regulated pharmacies" appear to be doing a better job than our-well-regulated," militias.

Yes Larry, you would ignore the truth about the lawsuits against Big Pharma...