And then they were only two - CVS and Walgreens.
They'll almost certainly re-emerge under new ownership. It's like J. Crew declaring bankruptcy in 2020, but consumers who didn't follow the news never had the slightest idea. Frequently in bankruptcy, retail locations never cease operations even for a single day.
It's not like Toys 'R' Us stores disappearing in 2018. That happened because big-box toy stores were simply no longer viable as a category.
While CVS and Walgreens prove that the Rite Aid drugstores are still entirely viable as a business, under new (better) management.
And at these locations where they install the cases, you have to wait for a person to come over and unlock it, except they also didn’t increase staffing to deal with all of these case opening requests.
I thought getting bought and pillaged by private equity was the reason.
I can pillage my retirement savings any time I want.
But individual _companies_ are under the controls of their owners (modulo applicable laws). That's because we empirically figured out that this model works well, and also because we want to incentivize people to start and run companies in the first place.
Also keep in mind that in some sense companies are just legal shells. If you strip assets like eg machine tools, in order to make money you actually need to sell them. But if you do that, someone else has them to use them. They don't just disappear.
Yet another thing: not all companies should be kept around. It's good for less inefficient companies to go bankrupt, and for people to change jobs. (Especially as long as the overall unemployment rate is low enough. But you don't keep that rate low by making it harder to fire or harder to 'pillage' companies. Just the opposite, you get more job creation the easier you make it for people to benefit from creating companies and jobs.)
But private equity had nothing to do with why nobody was willing to buy it to keep it going post-bankruptcy with a fresh balance sheet.
Good one :).
https://ilsr.org/rule/pharmacy-ownership-laws/2832-2/
(Walmart spent almost $10M attempting to challenge this law, and still lost to North Dakota voters: https://www.drugtopics.com/view/walmart-spent-93-million-cha...)
I'm intrigued, but where was it proven?
> In North Dakota, prescription drug prices are more affordable than in two-thirds of all states. Pharmacies are more plentiful, with more per capita than in neighboring South Dakota, Minnesota, or nationally, and they’re more broadly distributed; North Dakota’s rural areas are 51 percent more likely to contain a pharmacy than similarly-populated areas of South Dakota. And in general, independent pharmacies provide higher quality care, studies and surveys of customer satisfaction find.
> North Dakota reaps economic benefits, too, from this local ownership. Without the Pharmacy Ownership Law, a 2014 report from ILSR estimates, about 70 of North Dakota’s independent pharmacies would close. Chain pharmacies headquartered around the country and out-of-state mail order companies would fill the gap, and ILSR estimates that direct economic losses to the state’s economy would be at least $17 million, and as high as $29 million, without accounting for indirect impacts such as lost tax revenue.
So, prescriptions are affordable and accessible to prescription consumers, these independently owned and operated pharmacies are sustainable, dollars are kept local and in the state, and large format retailers (Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid) are kept out of the market. Voted for by 60% of North Dakota voters in their last referendum. "Proven to be beneficial for all parties involved."
I did read the link, but was hoping there might be something more to it.
prescription drug prices are more affordable than in two-thirds of all states. Pharmacies are more plentiful, with more per capita than in neighboring South Dakota, Minnesota
So 17th best in the country in prices doesn't seem like a huge win? Neighboring Montana is doing better at 11th best (2014 - most recent price data from your link), and North Dakota has been dropping in the rankings, from 10 in 2010 to 17 in 2014.
You can't really tell if there has been a small benefit or small penalty to consumers. But definitely doesn't scream huge win on this policy.
Germany does so as well, and requires even stuff like aspirin be sold only in pharmacies. Result is that such basic medication is a lot more expensive there than in eg neighbouring Netherlands.
IT is also a rule in many states that independent doctor practices and I believe veterinarians, too, must be owned by the licensed professional (MDs or Vets)
Yet private equity and hospitals are scooping up independent doctor practices left and right
It is a weird concept - you get some kind of medical director, and ownership is never changed, just control changes, the owner charges a management fee to the practice, and voila - you now "own" a doctor's office.
I would absolutely would want to see this arrangement tested, since it goes against the spirit of the law
Seriously though, aren't they making a play for this space?
To get legit products from Amazon is like winning a scratch off. It's not rare, just not common.
i've been around the sun enough times to know that when things are too cheap, there's usually a reason. history is full of pills being sold that weren't what they claimed to be on the box.
We know most of the reason though, and that is that the insurance model of the US is completely broken and blows prices completely out of the water. The Amazon pharma prices are only 'too cheap' relative to the base US inflated price. They're much closer to the prices you see in perfectly peer level countries in Europe where they have perfectly safe drugs.
Once you have any mtbung that falls into that category, 90% of the benefits go away because if you have to go in for that one thing anyway, it’s mostly less hassle just to get everything there rather than split things up between multiple pharmacies.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/06/15/cvs-health-t...
Kroger bought out Albertsons, which had a 1700-branch in-store pharmacy operation too:
https://www.supermarketnews.com/nonfood-pharmacy/will-kroger...
Not sure how well the independents do with the PBMs these days and a lot of PBMs alliances with dispensing pharmacies.