They have just begun to control if/when/where/how much healthcare that you get

Anthem Announces Collaboration with Walmart

CVS to Buy Aetna for $69 Billion in a Deal That May Reshape the Health Industry

Walgreens and Humana are reportedly in talks to take stakes in each other

 

 

CVS Health is probably a little ahead of the pack…but.. they all seem to be going in the same direction. They are seemingly moving toward what Obamacare wanted to happen when it was passed nearly a decade ago … Accountable Care Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountable_care_organization

One entity that would “take care” of all the pt’s medical needs and being paid a flat $$$/pt/month for whatever the pt’s healthcare needs were.

Right now under the CVS Health umbrella has abt 10,000 community pharmacies, the largest nursing home pharmacy (Omnicare), the PBM Caremark, the Part D insurance (Silver Scripts), specialty pharmacies, walk-in Minute Clinics and before the end of the year they will have some 42 million beneficiaries with the acquisition of Aetna Health Insurance.  To complete the circle all they need to do is acquire or align/merge with a large hospital system.

Now we have Walmart and Anthem collaborating especially with Medicare Advantage and Part D pts having Anthem insurance and Walgreens and Humana doing some sort of a merger.

One can only imagine the financial incentives – disincentives if a person is a beneficiary of one of these insurance companies. CVS is already with Medicare folks that have their Silver Scripts insurance … they pay higher copays … unless they get their prescriptions filled at a ‘preferred pharmacy” and in my area.. all the “preferred pharmacies” are CVS stores. For me the closest CVS store is 8 miles in one direction and 12 miles in the opposite direction.

In the county that I live in there are TWO CVS Stores – abt 0.5 miles apart (one is former Target).. the county to the west there is ONE STORE and the county to the east has THREE.

CVS just recently announced that there Minute Clinics were going to start treating CHRONIC CONDITIONS..  until now.. all the walk in clinics in most chain pharmacies are there to treat acute health issues, give vaccinations, school health physicals and the like.  Is this change so that they can “encourage” there soon to be acquired 42 million Aetna beneficiaries to switch from their normal PCP to their minute clinic ?  Will that “encouragement” eventually turn into “mandatory” ?

2 Responses

  1. We let this happen by letting agencies/entities chip away at our freedom of choice. No matter the form. I guess we feel we don’t have the power to stop them, to bring about change.
    All this just pisses me off amd all I can say to everyone is to educate yourselves and do what you can to fight this wildfire from spreading out of control. Educate your family and friends as well so they can make informed decisions.

  2. We’re HEADED to Socialized medicine and I’m not DIGGING IT! Neither party is worth a damn. They promised to repeal and replace after campaigning on it for Years! Myself and my family have changed our party affiliation to Libertarian. Of course until a candidate runs for it, we’ll have to vote for the lesser of evils.
    But honestly our country needs to get back to Following the Constitution. Not change it. Our Freedom Liberties and Privacy are most important. Our healthcare system has gone to HELL !! I honestly don’t know anyone who likes it Now. No one! Congress needs to listen to the people who hired them. But they never will long as they’re libbyist paying them off

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