Late in 2011 it was announced that Walmart would be stepping into the Health Care industry like never before. Just as interesting was the article by Forbes that hailed the move as great news for American consumers.
The author goes on to explain:
Retail health clinics like those operated by Walmart and its peers represent crucial components of our nation’s drive to expand access to affordable health care.
Walmart already operates about 140 retail clinics. Nationwide, there are now more than 1,000 such clinics, where consumers can get a variety of treatments for common ailments like colds or ear infections for less than the cost of a visit to the doctor’s office.
Not everyone supports the rapid expansion of retail clinics. Some doctors, for instance, question whether the nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants that treat most patients at the clinics are equipped with the proper tools and skills to deliver high-quality care.
Their fears are generally unfounded. Dr. Ateev Mehrotra, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and RAND Institute researcher, examined the comparative quality of treatment at retail clinics in a 2009 study for Annals of Internal Medicine.
The results? “We’re not seeing any differences in the quality of care that’s provided by retail clinics compared to doctors’ offices and emergency departments,” Mehrotra told the American College of Physicians.
It is hard to be so trusting. Walmart has eliminated the competition from every small business that competes with them and the idea that they could do this to local doctors is not far-fetched. Let’s not forget either that many Americans are beginning to realize that prevention is the best medicine and the best way to avoid harmful foods is to stay far away from Walmart. Recent reports of unlabeled GMO corn is just the latest in a long line of known facts that Walmart does not care about the health and well being of the general public. The processed foods, corn syrup and all the rest grow big and strong thanks to pesticides before being converted into cute little cookies or soda drinks. All of these things would be missing from the ‘doctor recommended’ list but now they’ll be falling in the ‘Always Low Prices’ list instead.
What’s next? Will people one day have babies in Walmart. I can see young mothers walking in with their smartphones, equipped with a coupon code they can scan for discounted birth rates. Maybe when we will die they can turn us into goo and use us for fertilizer. This would be excellent for sustainable growth, no doubt.
Big Pharma, Big Bribes
In other news it has also been reported recently that a Pharma company admits to $2 million in bribes. As reported by Vactruth.com.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reported Pfizer using its influential money to bribe foreign governments and their health officials. The apparent goal was to use Pfizer’s money to create unfair economic advantages in the market to peddle their pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
Advice from Doctors is typically the most trusted so it is no wonder that their ‘word’ is being bought and sold as their ability to profit dwindles. With the massive amounts of school loans they must pay back and the increased difficulty to manage profits it’s almost hard to blame them.
