Health Care Crisis: Wal-Mart to the Rescue!
You’re probably thinking “What the F%$#!&*^%$#$!#?!?!?!?!?” But this article makes a few interesting points.
Yes, Wal-Mart has thrown people out of work by driving local stores out of business. And your local emergency room is flooded with Wal-Mart employees who can’t afford (or aren’t qualified for) their company’s health care “coverage.”
But: Wal-Mart now offers low-cost prescriptions for 350 generic drugs. A 90-day supply costs $10. And about a thousand over-the-counter drugs are available at extremely cheap prices. Take that, pharmaceutical robber barons.
I’m surprised there isn’t a gang war going on between the Big Pharm Crips and the Wal-Mart Bloods.
Wal-Mart has also started opening inexpensive walk-in medical clinics at some of its stores. So far they’re just in Atlanta, Little Rock and Dallas. There should be more soon.
Well, it’s a start.
Now, as long as we’re visiting Bizarro World, let’s stay on a roll…
Wal-Mart is too liberal! That was not a typo. There really are a few ultra-rightwing dildos out there who believe this.
Peter Flaherty has been attending Wal-Mart shareholder meetings to tell the management they’re too soft on unions, too accommodating to homosexuals and too concerned about the environment. He yelled into the mike: “People shop at Wal-Mart because of low prices, not because the company is politically correct.”
Flaherty is head of a rightwing think tank called National Legal and Policy Center, which owns a few thousand dollars’ worth of Wal-Mart stock. Another member of the National Legal and Policy Center said: “The more Wal-Mart tries to appease the Left, the more the Left demands.”
I’m sure glad the Far Right isn’t demanding like that.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: National Legal and Policy Center, Peter Flaherty, Wal-Mart low-cost prescriptions, Wal-Mart too liberal, Wal-Mart walk-in clinics
posted by Tom Harper @ 2:58 PM
5 Comments:
I hate to give Wal-Mart credit for anything but this prescription deal has really helped a lot of people. And now I see other chains are starting to do it also.
Anything that is *not* far-right (except ... well... even further than far right - if that is possible) is pinko, commie, and lefty "scary" territory for right wingnuts ...
J: Yeah, I guess we have to give credit where it's due. I'm glad other chains are starting to jump on the bandwagon.
Mentarch: It'll be interesting to see if those Wal-Mart pinkos still get patronized by millions of rednecks.
I salute you for giving credit where due. Three or four years ago, Wal Mart's CEO set out on a goodwill PR tour to improve the company's image. I think maybe he got it that more than PR is required.
There's the low-cost generic Rx plan, which is very good. But it's also true that Wal Mart has, not once but twice, acted to make its employee health insurance more affordable and more worthwhile for more of its people. No, it's not exactly a model for the industry and the country. But it apparently is notably improved.
As for Flaherty and the National Legal and Policy Center, may they and their ilk return to being the unloved and unwanted minority of the minority party, as was the case from the 1930's to the late 1970's.
I say that not just because I dislike and disagree with them, but because what they demand — greed and selfishness as economic policy — is bad for everyone.
SW: You've got those rightwing "minority within a minority" nutcases dialed. Those sickwipes have always been with us, especially, like you mentioned, from the 1930s through the late 1970s. I think even Reagan and/or Bush 41 referred to them as "the crazies in the basement." Even though they were a tiny minority, they had too much financial backing to be totally ignored. At least until Dumbya got "elected" in 2000.
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