This is a good thing, regardless of whatever else Amazon is doing.
Large organizations do not monolithically fit one description or judgment. Amazon does lots of other questionable or downright malicious things. This is not one of those.
Large organizations do not monolithically fit one description or judgment. Amazon does lots of other questionable or downright malicious things. This is not one of those.
This is just Amazon trying to grow their pharmacy business at all costs. What they are doing in this specific example is a good thing, but who knows what the fallout will be.
Excellent point. It's easy (in the US, at least) to take the widespread availability of pharmacies in grocery stores, street corners, etc for granted. It's not difficult to see Amazon squeezing the industry enough to make a pharmacy in a grocery store unsustainable.
Rite Aid just bought a beloved local chain and now everyone I know has switched because it’s been run into the ground.
But when a competitor is a behemoth who is able to eat losses until they drive competitors out of business (and has a track record of doing so) so that competition (and customer experience quality) declines in the long run, that's the rare-but-true case of "a new competitor entering the market is bad, actually".
Between this and being treated like a junkie when I need a hold-over dose of a non-addictive non-narcotic medication makes me hate the cards I was dealt. Pharmacists are complicit in this even though they frame themselves as victims of the system as well. Those kickbacks from drug companies and doctors are just too damn good.
Anyone who actually deals with the medical system knows these services are not a universal good. I always advise people to stick with GoodRx and a local (physical) location for medication so you don't get you medication promptly cut off when (not if) you lose benefits.
To be clear, the thing that I am saying is good is the topic of the article at hand, Amazon automatically applying discounts for insulin. This is orthogonal to their delivery methods.
A lot can be said about Amazon and thats valid, but they do put a lot of focus on their customers.
We can argue that them doing this likely means that they will get more business and that will also prop up the rest of their prescription offerings, but that goal ultimately has a benefit to people that need this medication.
If they can apply this to copay cards and anything else that saves people who need these medications (by that I mean just all medications across the board) money but Amazon still gets their money, it would be huge. The system sucks right now.