Wednesday, October 03, 2007

NPR : Wal-Mart Expanding Discount Drug Program

The title was enough to get me to listen to this report about Wal-Mart and generic drugs but what struck me was what the commentator said at the end of the report, something about this possibly being Wal-Mart taking aim at the American healthcare system as a whole.

I am not a fan of Wal-Mart by *any* stretch of the imagination, not at all (I have not been to a Wal-Mart to shop for myself for over 10 years, though i have tagged along with friends) but for the first time in a long time i am rooting for Wal-Mart to take that first shot across the bow of the healthcare industry. I also am not a fan of government run institutions since they are quite often chronically bureaucratic, and i have heard of nightmares in European countries about not being able to get appointments for months at a time so i guess i fall somewhere in between. Despite my being (somewhere) in the middle i am wholly convinced that the American healthcare system is deeply flawed and just as entrenched so having someone like Wal-Mart shake things up can't be a bad thing.