Publisher's Notebook
Trust your pharmacist?
Publisher Bruce Trogdon
Last week’s topic resulted in a flood of votes in The Post’s increasingly popular online Weekly Poll. The question was “Would you use an inside-your-door delivery option offered by a retailer? A resounding 86.9 percent want no part of that, voting “No, I don’t trust the person doing the delivery.” A brave 13.1 percent are not worried, they are just happy that “it will cut down on my soggy/stolen packages.”
This week’s topic may not be quite as controversial, but it is a very topical issue that further reflects the rapidly changing times we are living in. Like last week’s question, it also involves Amazon. And trust.
This week’s subject is about the proposed buyout by the CVS drugstore chain of one of the nation’s largest health insurers – Aetna – for $69 billion.
Such a takeover represents a very important development because it has the potential to entirely reshape the nation’s health care industry. And who isn’t concerned about their health care these days?
Americans spend an average of $255 billion on branded drugs each year, plus another $115 billion on generics.
In the past, drugstores and health care were traditionally separate entities. It would seem on the face of it to be a conflict of interest to have your health provider also selling you the drugs that they are prescribing. From the companies’ point of view, the deal just presents them an opportunity to make both companies more appealing to their consumers. They point out that health care is not just delivered in a doctor’s office anymore. It is spreading to video and also to your phone, possibly through apps from retail clinics like CVS.
CVS brings a chain of pharmacies and clinics to the mix that could be used by Aetna to eliminate the middleman. In theory, this would lower costs, which is a very important goal these days. It certainly could provide more convenient care directly to patients.
Another big factor used to argue for the proposed merger is that Aetna could offer employers one-stop health insurance shopping for their workers. I know this is already happening because my daughter is herself a nurse practitioner for Cleveland Clinic, and they already have a tie-in for their employees with CVS. She was just telling me over the Thanksgiving holiday that CVS has become her main shopping source. Of course, having a newborn has a little bit to do with that!
Critics worry consumers may be left with less choice if they are being directed to a specific provider like CVS. You wonder if CVS will, in practice, become your doctor and drugstore all-in-one. It is kind of like the old “company store” concept.
“We think of it as creating a new front door to health care in America,” CVS Health chief executive Larry J. Merlo said in a recent interview. “We know we can make health care more affordable and less expensive.”
Aetna’s chief executive Mark T. Bertolini said that by aligning with the many locations of CVS, he can provide an easier way for people to access medical care.
“It’s in their community. It’s in their home,” he said. “People trust their pharmacist.”
I wonder. Now they do. Will they continue to after the pharmacist becomes basically their doctor, too?
The buzz in the industry is that CVS is worried about Amazon. The online shopping behemoth is reportedly looking to have the same effect on pharmaceuticals that it has had in turning so many other industries upside down. Certainly, any business has the right to try and defend itself from extinction. Bertolini denies this.
“Chasing our competitors has never been a solution. Our competitors will do what they do,” he said.
I can see why Bertolini might like the idea. It is said that he could personally benefit by nearly half a billion dollars if he can get this merger accomplished. That doesn’t mean that his other arguments are invalid. It does serve as a reminder that there is a lot of money to be made here. Which makes me worry about who might get run over by those chasing dollar signs that large.
In my mind, there is no denying that our health care system is broken. Some kind of changes will have to be made. So we must be open minded. Does this trend offer a viable solution? Let us know by answering this week’s question in our online poll at your local Post website, or our overall thepostnewspapers.com site.
Do you think that drugstores buying health insurance companies is a good thing? Yes — it will hold costs down. Or no — it is a conflict of interest.
This week’s topic may not be quite as controversial, but it is a very topical issue that further reflects the rapidly changing times we are living in. Like last week’s question, it also involves Amazon. And trust.
This week’s subject is about the proposed buyout by the CVS drugstore chain of one of the nation’s largest health insurers – Aetna – for $69 billion.
Such a takeover represents a very important development because it has the potential to entirely reshape the nation’s health care industry. And who isn’t concerned about their health care these days?
Americans spend an average of $255 billion on branded drugs each year, plus another $115 billion on generics.
In the past, drugstores and health care were traditionally separate entities. It would seem on the face of it to be a conflict of interest to have your health provider also selling you the drugs that they are prescribing. From the companies’ point of view, the deal just presents them an opportunity to make both companies more appealing to their consumers. They point out that health care is not just delivered in a doctor’s office anymore. It is spreading to video and also to your phone, possibly through apps from retail clinics like CVS.
CVS brings a chain of pharmacies and clinics to the mix that could be used by Aetna to eliminate the middleman. In theory, this would lower costs, which is a very important goal these days. It certainly could provide more convenient care directly to patients.
Another big factor used to argue for the proposed merger is that Aetna could offer employers one-stop health insurance shopping for their workers. I know this is already happening because my daughter is herself a nurse practitioner for Cleveland Clinic, and they already have a tie-in for their employees with CVS. She was just telling me over the Thanksgiving holiday that CVS has become her main shopping source. Of course, having a newborn has a little bit to do with that!
Critics worry consumers may be left with less choice if they are being directed to a specific provider like CVS. You wonder if CVS will, in practice, become your doctor and drugstore all-in-one. It is kind of like the old “company store” concept.
“We think of it as creating a new front door to health care in America,” CVS Health chief executive Larry J. Merlo said in a recent interview. “We know we can make health care more affordable and less expensive.”
Aetna’s chief executive Mark T. Bertolini said that by aligning with the many locations of CVS, he can provide an easier way for people to access medical care.
“It’s in their community. It’s in their home,” he said. “People trust their pharmacist.”
I wonder. Now they do. Will they continue to after the pharmacist becomes basically their doctor, too?
The buzz in the industry is that CVS is worried about Amazon. The online shopping behemoth is reportedly looking to have the same effect on pharmaceuticals that it has had in turning so many other industries upside down. Certainly, any business has the right to try and defend itself from extinction. Bertolini denies this.
“Chasing our competitors has never been a solution. Our competitors will do what they do,” he said.
I can see why Bertolini might like the idea. It is said that he could personally benefit by nearly half a billion dollars if he can get this merger accomplished. That doesn’t mean that his other arguments are invalid. It does serve as a reminder that there is a lot of money to be made here. Which makes me worry about who might get run over by those chasing dollar signs that large.
In my mind, there is no denying that our health care system is broken. Some kind of changes will have to be made. So we must be open minded. Does this trend offer a viable solution? Let us know by answering this week’s question in our online poll at your local Post website, or our overall thepostnewspapers.com site.
Do you think that drugstores buying health insurance companies is a good thing? Yes — it will hold costs down. Or no — it is a conflict of interest.
