wonder how the law looks at an insurance company using it's own pharmacies
Posted on 12/03/2017 2:04:05 PM PST by John W
CVS Health is expected to announce plans to acquire Aetna for roughly $69 billion in cash and stock in a first-of-its kind deal aimed at fending off challenges in retail and health care, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC on Sunday.
The deal is one of the year's largest so far. It comes as insurers are under pressure to lower medical costs and retailers are under attack from new competitors, including an increasingly powerful Amazon. It creates the first health-care triple threat, combining CVS's pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager platform with Aetna's insurance business.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Closer to a single payer system.
Triple threat, minus medicine, surgery, and nursing.
$69 billion is a decent amount of money.
Odd how Citizens are being put through the financial wringer while these large health systems are rolling in the dough. Hmmm...
If CVS runs healthcare the way it runs its pharmacies, we’re all going to die.
“Odd how Citizens are being put through the financial wringer while these large health systems are rolling in the dough. Hmmm...”
Yeah, no kidding! We were far better off when we paid our H/C providers out of our own pockets and sought reimbursement from our H/C insurers. One the H/C cabal (i.e. Doctors/Drug Mfrs, Insurers, Ambulance Chasing Lawyers and the Government) was successful in disconnecting the individual H/C “customer” from the payment process, they had us by the balls. Then you add to that the Harvard MBA “business leaders” in all these components whose only interest is in their shareholders equity, and it’s easy to see why the “consumer” is getting the shaft.
CVS is a terrible store. Walgreens is far superior. For them to take over Aetna...if they were my insurer, I’d be looking to abandon ship.
CVS stores are dingy, drab (narrow aisles with stuff piled high) and their prices aren’t that special. Add in a cramped parking lot and it was always a chore to shop there.
I started buying my personal care items at my supermarket, because I get rewards points that don’t involve a strip of mostly useless coupons the length of my car shooting out of the register or that red machine that plays a tune causing everyone to look at me.
And no, I do not want to give you my email or donate to the cause du jour.
Rant ended!
wonder how the law looks at an insurance company using it's own pharmacies
It seems like an anti-trust issue to me.
AWWW no!! I have Aetna and am satisfied. The dealings of relatives with CVS have not been satisfactory.
We need much more competition in medicine, not less. Hospital systems have now gobbled up smaller competing hospitals, bought out physician practices, and have bloated their administrative staff and administrative salaries to the point of being absurd. In the meantime, premiums continue to rise.
Now we have this attempt by CVS to protect themselves from the expanding number of small no-frills alternative pharmacies that have been popping up. Of course, if CVS is successful in their takeover of Aetna they will be able to ensure that these small competitive alternative pharmacies will be excluded from the listed of facilities covered by Aetna.
We used to have an excellent local drugstore chain (Longs Drugs). CVS bought them out several years ago, and although they kept the name on the stores to fool people, have basically driven the stores into the ground with all the things you said and more. Especially pathetic was their redoing all the shelves to make the aisles narrower and more difficult to navigate, and yet half the shelves are not empty since they don’t bother to keep them stocked. Pathetic.
Just this morning we went to get a sales item advertised in the morning paper, and they didn’t have any in the store.
Used to manage a Couple of CVS stores, every negative you can say is true in spades.
Oh the stories I would like to tell if I could.
My grandmother used to go there in Indianapolis, I believe.
The open enrollment ended Nov 8th. I stayed with Aetna. Not really many alternatives in southeast Idaho. Not very good news. I pay huge premiums. I have huge deductibles. My wife is really the only user of our medical/dental coverage. This year my company added a $100/month "surcharge" if a spouse has coverage with another employer. That is the case, so we're individually sticking with our own employer plans. I'm still paying more this year than last AFTER dropping my wife. Huge expenses for absolutely no tangible benefit.
It should be blocked, or else the CVS retail-store division separated out as a separate independent company.
The vertical integration would be too much in a set of industries with of rapidly shrinking major competitors.
In addition to its retail operations, it is one of the largest wholesale prescription drug distributors/prescription benefit managers (services the insurance companies for their drug plans (not limited to distribution/benefit management as relates to drugs supplied through CVS-retail stores) and one of the few major national distributors of “specialty” drugs - extremely high priced drugs.
And now an insurer as well? I’d say no.
Sure hope President Trump and the Justice Department veto this acquisition. We do not need a super sized integrated health care industry company. More consolidation means far less competition, plus more control over every aspect of our personal health care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.