Sunday, March 30, 2008

The many faces of Wal-Mart

Tucked into yesterday's local paper was a junk-mail circular advertising Wal-Mart's new "$4 Prescriptions for Everybody" program, and my husband just spotted it on the kitchen counter. "Hey, cool," he said, "It's great they're doing that. Maybe they're not so bad."

But actually, yes. Yes, they are.

There's a decent chance you have already heard or read about Deborah Shank's being sued for reimbursement of medical expenses by her former employer, as the tale seems to have taken on a life of its own in blogworld ... but in case you haven't, here's the story from The Wall Street Journal.

Anybody out there still think the existing "system" for health care finance is working? Anyone? Maybe it depends on who you are. For example, it seems to be working pretty well for Wal-Mart ...

1 comment:

Kelly Hills said...

You don't even need to look that far for examples of WalMart being awful - their much touted $4 for all prescription plan counts the same medication multiple times to inflate thee number of prescriptions offered at $4 (because penicillin is a very different medication in different doses, of course), which ends up significantly changing the number of medications offered, and most of what is offered at $4 is already generic and not costing much more than that. People with chronic conditions are pretty much screwed, and still have to pay normal costs for their asthma medications, pain medications, and other maintenance drugs.

When we get $4 HIV drugs, then there'll be reason to celebrate.