Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
I think the Walgreens idea is terrific. If all the big companies in America did something similar, it seems to me that would go a long way towards making working people healthier and reducing the cost of healthcare.
But there are two key words in my complimentary statement..."big companies" and "working people".
If the idea of company-sponsored healthcare became common, that would be great. But the number of people it would affect would be too small, I think. How many people these days work for companies that can afford such a program? Even if they do work for a large company, do they work in an office of sufficient size to justify an on-site medical professional? Then there's the question of "working people". What happens when the employee who has grown to trust and depend on the company program gets laid off, quits or retires? What do they do then?
Overall, I think what Walgreens is doing is wonderful. But it a supplementary program, not the total answer to healthcare for the wide range of working and non-working Americans.
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The idea with regard to Walgreen's is ok at best. The clinics like many other "minuite clinic" set ups are staffed primarily by nurse practitioners and are primarily (even according to their own site) for minor conditions such as colds, flu, upper respiratory track infections, and minor skin conditions. While any or all of these may be bothersome most don't require any treatment beyond symptomatic relief from over the counter medications. The setting provides decent potential for profitability because of just those reasons and the fact that an NP is paid less.
As much as it may be magnanemous and somewhat innovative on their part, it really does very little to address issues with our health care industry at large. It could be considered wasting resources by knowledgable people as is much of the rest of our system. What it does not address is the incredibly large problem of people with multiple co-morbidities (the diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease collection that so many have for example). There are also so many other things that a system like this can never adaquately address.
This for the most part is sort of "feel good" medicine that appeals the segment of society (pretty large I think) that thinks they need a doctor and a pill for everything or they just are not getting their money's worth. That's what I mean by waste.
I bring none of this up to knock their program, but to make sure some other aspects of it and the system at large are factored in.