4/3/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

                  I figured out the mystery of the resurrection. Jesus wasn’t dead. They didn’t have stethoscopes back then, so he may have been unconscious when they wrapped him in the shroud & put him in the tomb. I haven’t figured out how the rock at the tomb’s opening could have been moved. That’s the next part of the story to figure out.

                  I ponder the miracles of Jesus’ life because I am a big fan of his message, but don’t believe the stories told about him. It causes me dissonance which makes me uncomfortable, so I want to get it straight in my head.

                  As I try to get things straight in my head, today’s stories about you & Bernie Sanders’ (BS) efforts to bring down drugs prices makes me wonder how we incentivize drug creation at the same time we limit profits for pharmaceutical companies. I’m all for affordable medicine, but according to Big Pharm, development is expensive & often fails. They can’t afford to do it, unless they can make big bucks on the successful meds. I appreciate BS’s attempt to lower the out-of-pocket cost of inhalers for tens of millions of Americans by naming-and-shaming individual pharmaceutical companies & executives, but am not sure it will fix the problem of unaffordable pills.

                  As you think about health care today, please consider the dire situation in Burma where “people living in remote areas (approximately 70% of the population) often lack adequate health knowledge, access to providers, a reliable electricity supply, & medicine …. The quality of healthcare services in urban areas has also declined because of shortages of qualified medical staff, supply gaps caused by trade restrictions, & electricity outages. Wealthy populations often fly out of the country to seek higher-quality health care abroad.”  Our International Trade Assoc. considers this a business opportunity. I consider it a tragedy. What do you think?

                  BYBS,