Drug Makers Raise Prices in Face of Health Care Reform

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Full NY Times Article

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Can you name the most commonly used words in the English language?

  • Enter a word in the box below
  • Correctly named words will show up in the table below
  • Answers do not have to be guessed in order
  • This game was contributed by Sporcle user: davidr
  • Note: closely-related words, such as run/runs/ran/running/runner, are treated as being the same word.
  • Source: Oxford English Dictionary

You have 12 minutes to guess after you click the button below.

Link

After seeing the answers, I knew I could have done better:

You got 58 out of 100 most commonly used words in the English language.

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Japan’s NEC Eyeglasses Translate Foreign Languages

TOKYO –
It’s the latest in eyewear for the linguistically challenged: Japanese computer-maker NEC has created a pair of glasses that double as a translator.

The Tele Scouter integrates spectacle frames with a personal mini-computer and a head-mounted display unit, allowing two or more people with no language in common to hold a conversation.

Conversations are, with the press of a button, recorded and sent to a remote server where they are analyzed and translated.

The server then sends the translation to the receiving user who can read the words in their own language on the display unit.

Link

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