AYarter said:
Yup. That's the next enforcement mechanism. God forbid people who aren't rich get healthy.
It’s interesting you bring this up. This statement feels increasingly true as time goes on. I was trying to explain this to family while visiting this past weekend. Forget the cost of pharma for a second and just consider the bloodwork/labs being run. The lowest I was able to get down to for mine was around $250. It had the basics:
-Basic Metabolic, Basic CBC, Standard Lipid Panels
-Basic Thyroid (TSH)
-Hemoglobin A1C
-High sensitivity CRP and RF testing (for inflammation issues)
-PsA testing
-Liver Function Panel
All this was $105, which is palatable. But the bigger deals to me, right now, are the last 2 tests.
-Testosterone Immunoassay
-IGF-1 LC/MS
Those two alone cost $145 together… On sale. Not covered by insurance of course.
I thought I was clever and got the Testosterone and IGF1 as standalones after a physician visit when I got the usual full panel bloodwork done to save a little. This was before I did the peptide journey, and actually was a contributing factor to beginning the journey.
I’d love to get another round of testing in now, and keep it up every 3-4 months. But I’m probably going to have to do 6 months or more. Not sure I can really spend nearly $1000/annually on bloodwork. Thing is, there were a ton of other tests I probably could benefit from, but we are talking adding 3-4x to the cost, which is exorbitant already.
Even if you’re middle class, no way you’re able to get the really beneficial testing, let alone treatment that could really optimize your life. Of course, my family is more old worldish and asked what I need these tests for in the first place.
I totally get that there’s money to be made with GLPs. The markup is crazy on it, and if there were truly no gray market, or even “reliable” compounders, it seems, like it would be truly hard to get. Outside of weight loss and body recomp, GLPs already do a ton of other interesting things from inflammation control to potential addiction curbing. What’s going to happen down the line when there’s a substance that can benefit almost everyone at even greater levels? Where we see a weird split of majority class dying at 75-80 if they’re lucky, and an incredibly small population of people living (even thriving) through 120, 130 and beyond. Sure, it’s a little sci-fi conspiracy theoryish but… who knows.
Anywho, customs snagging things has been a thing for as long as I remember. Ages ago, I rec’d a couple LLs regarding Modafinil. Nothing ever came from it, other than losing out on product occasionally. I think it’s important to not panic buy/hoard, but certainly build a reasonable stockup for just in case.