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Comment by Consultant32452 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you. Walmart already revolutionized pharma once by offering a huge list of drugs for $4/30-day and $10/-90 day. Even if no one reading this buys those drugs from Wal-Mart, you get them cheaply because Wal-Mart forced everyone else to drop prices to compete. I wonder if it could be calculated how many lives have been saved by doing this. Anecdotally I know a lot of people whose lives have been improved by being able to take those cheap options. And I know a couple of doctors who say they point their patients in that direction to help them save money.

>But I’d never buy non-consumables from them.

I'm curious, would you get a Wal-Mart xray or MRI? Depending on the issue, I think I might.

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> Walmart already revolutionized pharma once by offering a huge list of drugs for $4/30-day and $10/-90 day

I was shocked to find that some of my prescriptions that were costing me $20 out of pocket with insurance at Rite Aid where $4 cash price at Walmart. I've moved everything I can to cash at Walmart, even in some cases where the Walmart cash price is a little higher than my with-insurance price elsewhere, just on the general principle that I don't want my insurance company to know what drugs I take [1].

[1] This stems from a time once when a condition I had improved to the point that I could stop taking drugs for it. A few months later it returned, and I asked my doctor to renew my prescription. He did so...and the insurance company rejected it. They were treating it like I was a brand new patient, and they no longer allowed that drug unless you had first tried a couple other newer drugs and they were not acceptable. I'd never had those drugs, but I'd had others in their families and they were either not very effective or had annoying side effects. I was willing to try the new drugs eventually, if this relapse turned out to not be temporary, but in the short term I wanted what we already knew worked well.

You might look up the company IMS and the states with mandatory prescription surveillance. When I was in the “biz” we could get prescription data at least by county, in some places by pharmacy and/or prescriber and, of course, for some drugs the patient.

Wait, you thought that info was confidential? Ha, this is the USA!

It's still confidential as patient identify is hidden.

Did you read my comment? It ended with, "and, of course, for some drugs the patient." Sometime we could connect directly with patients. Sorry.

Knowing this changed my use of pharmacies.

I'm pretty sure that you signed something with your insurance company that allows them to get a list of your active prescriptions even if you don't file a claim...

I saw the same thing at Costco. The thyroid pills my cat needed were $60 at a CVS or the supermarket, but only $15 at the Costco pharmacy. People just don't shop around enough.

Well, prescription drugs are one thing Walmart can't pressure the manufacturer to make worse. It has to be exactly what's printed on the label, nothing else. Many things aren't that way, including health plans.

Mostly agreed but be careful.. There have been incidents of generics that don't have as much active ingredient in them -- or have other quality control problems.

The other factor is packaging and longevity. Generics e.g. tend to have bits of foil that are too easy to detach and swallow.

And shelf life -- a quality of packaging and ingredients issue -- is less certain.

There are minimum requirements in the United States for health insurance plans. Pretty much every insurance provider already offers a barebones plan, and if Walmart/Humana could beat that on price, that would be a good thing.

The minimum legal standard to manufacturer is not the same thing as "safe". Cut too many corners and you ruin the medication before it arrives.

For instance, I would run the fuck away from a Muro 128 generic sold by Walmart.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/supply-chain/bausch-lomb-blames...

> Bausch + Lomb began recalling 850,000 tubes of Muro 128 ointment--plus 35,000 tubes of an unbranded sodium chloride product sold by Major Pharmaceuticals--after users complained of a "gritty, sandlike feeling" in the eye, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Valeant Pharmaceuticals ($VRX)-owned ophthalmic specialist was unable to find the source of the problem at the manufacturing plant, leading it to conclude that the extreme cold experienced over the winter may have caused crystals to form in the product during shipping.

Do you really trust the logistical capabilities of Walmart's supply chain to properly control for temperature?

>Do you really trust the logistical capabilities of Walmart's supply chain to properly control for temperature?

Countless people buy temperature controlled groceries from Walmart and I'm not familiar with rampant outbreaks of food poisoning.

Do you understand that is an easier problem to solve or are you just trolling?

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