BS: a new Wal-Mart?

Subject: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: kendall
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:23 AM

According to Brian Williams on NBC news yesterday, Wal-Mart is testing the waters with an eye toward getting into the generic drug business. They are claiming that they could sell some generic drugs for as little as $4.00 per prescription. The testing ground at present is Florida, and if it works, they will spread it all over the country. If so, GO Wal-Mart! That should bring the prices down at all drug outlets. I hope so, that way I could still boycott Wal-Mart and get cheaper drugs at my present location.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:28 AM

300 generic drugs, and Target is following ( in the test areas)

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 12:04 PM

Thankfully Karen has GREAT insurance and we buy through MerckMedco. I'm interested to see which scrip will be available generic as some are quite cheap to begin with and others which are popular are not available in generic, like Coreg.

Whatever happens this will be a signal move in retail pharmacies. IF karen's insurance changes, I can see us using this as a few of ours retail at over 200 a month. I doubt very much if those will be available at 4 bucks but........

I understand all the situations with WalMart and though I would like to show the courage of my conviction, the simple reality is that we lack the MONEY of our convictions.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 02:44 PM

...GO Wal-Mart! That should bring the prices down at all drug outlets. I hope so, that way I could still boycott Wal-Mart and get cheaper drugs...

Sounds a bit hypocritical to me.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 05:47 PM

When it breaks down can you still return it?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 06:17 PM

I'm happy about this. If it comes to NC it will save us a lot of money.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: kendall
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 07:06 PM

Bert, what is hypocritical? I would still buy my drugs at my present outlet, and I wouldn't have to go to Wal-Mart.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 09:25 PM

The Walmart announcement is a welcome enough one, if it survives the test market and spreads. The generic drugs for which the $4 per 30-day prescription will apply are only 291 of about 1800 generics commonly prescribed, so it's really only a small start.

The real "gotcha" is that many insurance plans require a co-pay for each prescription, commonly in the $5 to $20 range, and as implemented by many dispensers and insurance companies (e.g. in particular, for our account, by Merck-Medco) you may still pay the fixed copay even if the copay is more than the uninsured price of the drug.

In this case, of course, you should just pay for the drug without filing a claim from the insurer; but this often means you must know in advance, before submitting your prescription to a pharmacy, what the cost will be under multiple options; and it's really tough to keep your prescriptions separated once you start dealing with more than one pharmacy and more than one method of payment.

It doesn't help that most prescribing physicians don't have the foggiest notion of the cost/price of the drugs they prescribe, and frequently are unaware whether generic alternates are available for the meds the drug company reps are pushing at any given time.

An agile and alert mind and good accounting skills are necessary for (esp.) oldsters to survive all this.

John

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 09:38 PM

The real "gotcha" will be when MalWart brings its standard predatory practices to bear and engineers special deals from the the drug producers unavailable to other retailers.

Should put the local independent pharmacies out of business nicely, thank you very much.

Then MalWart will raise its prices.

Just like its done with its standard stock-in-trade cheap plastic junk.

And it'll make a mint. $11 billion profit a year just ain't enough.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: GUEST,Mr. K-Mart
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 09:51 PM

What this? All of a sudden Walmart is the best thing since the Five and Dime.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:08 PM

Not likely. Details at 11.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Sep 06 - 07:04 AM

$4 drugs:

1) As John in Kansas has pointed out, it's only a small fraction of the generic drugs Walmart sells. From the Wall St Journal 22 Sept 2006:   "For now the price cuts will apply to fewer than 300 of the roughly 2,000 generic drugs sold in most pharmacies."

2) "The reductions are unlikely to be costly to Wal-Mart, which along with other retailers already buys many of these drugs at "pennies per pill or less".

3) On some drugs, even with this reduction, the Walmart price is still not below the competition. Example: Popular new blood pressure medicine atenolol: Walmart: $4 for 30 pills (down from $8.62). Costco website: $3.69 for 30 pills.

4) Said an analyst: "What (the move does) is provide access to the uninsured and( Walmart's) own home base."   As you know, many of their own employees are now on Medicaid--a controversial issue (my comment)

5) Said Walgreen's spokesman: "A lot of the medications are very old generics".

6) "Critics called the effort "marketing spin" and "pointed to to what they characterized as Wal-Mart's less-than-generous health-care policies in which employees bear a big share of the costs."

7) Analyst: "..because generic drugs carry a higher profit margin at retail than branded drugs, Wal-Mart can clip its profit on the drugs and use any increased store traffic to sell more profitable non-generic items. It was frankly just a matter of time before someone decided to chip away at the generic-drug distribution system".




Also from the Wall St Journal: Meanwhile, at the same time, Walmart is ending the layaway program. This program "helped customers to afford bigger purchases by allowing them to pay for them n installments over 60 days without inccurring hefty interest payments. The move "could be particularly significant for lower-income customers. About 9% of US consumers don't use a bank, according to one survey, and Wal-Mart gets a disproportionate share of those shoppers."

"In addition, a certain percentage of its customers either don't qualify for credit cards or chose not to use them. For them, layaway was a particularly popular option, especially at the Christmas and back-to-school seasons"

"It's a bad, bad decision" said Tanya Judy, an administrative assistant at a Dallas film-developing company and a mother of two, who recently bought her eight-year daughter's school uniforms at Wal-Mart on layaway. I am coming out of a downward spiral of credit-card debt and I want to keep it that way..."

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Bert
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 03:38 AM

Bert, what is hypocritical?

Applauding them for leading a market trend and still boycotting them.

Doesn't seem fair somehow. Still it's your money and you will do as you please.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:18 AM

Said Walgreen's spokesman: "A lot of the medications are very old generics".

I have prescriptions for two of the ones I saw in an article. It will be good news if it gets this far.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: gnu
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 01:43 PM

I wish the Wal-Mart here would start selling beer.

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: number 6
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 03:57 PM

I hope not gnu .... do you want the brewing of Moosehead outsourced to China ??!!??!!

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:02 PM

As JohninKS pointed out, it won't make any difference to folks who have copay on their insurance unless they, and the pharmacy, pay attention. We use the only locally-owned and operated pharmacy in our valley and they still deliver for no extra charge. They don't charge us the copay if the drug is cheaper than that. Even though it may cost us a bit mroe in the long run (it'd be cheaper to buy mega-quantities through the insurance mail-in) we like patronising them and the personal service/attention. So, WalMart? NO!

Subject: RE: BS: a new Wal-Mart?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 10:57 PM

The Wal-Marts here sell Beer. They sell Labatt's Blue, Molson Ice and Molson Canadian brewed in Toronto.

The Lowes Supermarket sells Moosehead.

No Sleemans though... pity.