Corporate “greed”
I spent a number of months in France in the early 90s and one of the things I miss to this day was that pharmacists were licensed to diagnose minor illnesses (pink eye, nausea, ear infections, the flu, etc.) and prescribe remedies. If one had a minor medical issue that required a prescribed remedy, they needed simply mosey (or sache in this case) on down to the local pharmacy.
No clinic visits. No waiting rooms. No co-pays. No “(not at all) urgent care.”
On the home front, we have used Wal-Mart’s eye clinic with extremely satisfactory results over the last couple of years. It’s fast. It’s cheap. It’s staffed by friendly professionals. I only learned recently that, in many locales, Wal-Mart is offering full-blown clinics. Here’s a list of services, it’s pretty impressive. It’s also receiving rave reviews similar to our experiences with the eye clinic.
Others, like Walgreens and CVS are following this trend, opening clinics that offer cheap, cheery, care with no waiting. But CVS’s plans are meeting stiff opposition from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino:
“Limited service medical clinics run by merchants in for-profit corporations will seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene. Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong.”
I’m not sure what “for-profit” has to do with anything. Hospitals receive money for services, and doctors and administrators get plenty rich in the process. Retailers are simply hiring licensed professionals to fill a market void: affordable health care. If a chain can offer affordable health care and still make a profit, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? What does Menino care?
Glenn Reynolds has a theory:
Is it too cynical to suspect that the real opposition stems from fears that they will make national healthcare seem less urgent?
Cynical? Yes. But perhaps on to something too. If places like Wal-Mart, CVS, and Target affect the “health care crisis” simply by injecting competition into what is not now a free market by any stretch, they will have shown at once: 1) We do not need government to solve all of our problems and 2) A free market solution is an effective way to solve a crisis.
For supporters of nationalized health care, it is a triple nightmare. Not only would it be shown that markets adjust more quickly to needs and that government is not usually the answer, it would have been accomplished by the dreaded “big box” corporations, and their “greed,” which has become common populist campaign fodder for candidates who would have government ride to the rescue every time society requires something.
Wal-Mart is already filling another void in health care that government has found almost impossible. It negotiated lower prescription drug costs all by itself, without the strong arm of Congress. Even better, Target soon got in on the act and the competition is sure to drive prices down further.
In blasting Wal-Mart (as an example) it seems the only budget critics never bother to consider is the customer’s. Shopping there saves my family thousands of dollars a year not only through pricing, but through fewer miles traveled. For those of you who care deeply about the environment, I can only imagine how much less in emissions we have produced by being able to shop locally at Wal-Mart.
If the above are examples of “greedy corporations” getting rich at the expense of “average Americans,” I’ll take as much as I can get. If a Wal-Mart, or a Target, can see me, diagnose me, and treat me for minor illnesses, at a fraction of the cost of medical office, why in the world shouldn’t they?