Obamacare and the new drug policy

WASHINGTON – As the Obama Administration recoils over its inability to launch its health insurance website on time, White House spokesman Jay Carney, on Friday, announced the government’s new drug policy, called “No Secrets.”

The government, he said, reached an agreement late Thursday night with some of the country’s leading social media websites and the world’s largest search engine, Google, which, he says, “ensures Americans will have full access to their prescription drugs.”

Under the new policy, which will become effective January 1, 2014, pharmaceutical companies will “friend” their patients on Facebook. 

“No one will be allowed to reject these ‘friend’ requests because, with the government’s approval, Facebook will build a profile of the drugs each of their users are taking – under a doctor’s guidance, of course,” Carney said.

It’s expected, Carney said, Facebook will make everyone’s drug profile searchable – both in and out of the social media website.

“Think about it about this way – not only do your friends want to be friends with you on Facebook but so do your drugs,” said Mark Zuckerberg, the website’s chief executive officer, in a prepared statement.

“The next time you’re at the pharmacy, and you’ve forgotten what pills you’re taking, Facebook will be there to help,” Zuckerberg said.  “Either you call up your drug profile on Facebook, using your smartphone, or your pharmacist does on their desktop computer.

“Either way, you’re covered,” he added.

LinkedIn, a leading website for working professionals, is also part of this new policy, Carney said, because they’ll add a section to each users profile, detailing the drugs they’re taking, the amount and how often they’re required to consume them.

As with Facebook, this section of each drug profile will be made fully available for anyone to see – in and out of the website.

“Users of Viagra, Cialis and antidepressants – whatever people are taking – will be able to joke with one another about their experiences on these drugs and hire one another, too, maybe even become friends,” Carney said.

Google will take the information assembled by Facebook and LinkedIn and create searchable profiles, detailing the medicine each patient is taking, he said.

“As of now, we don’t think this new policy require anything extra, like search engine optimization,” Carney said.  “Regular algorithms should work.”