Precept Employee Benefits Blog

In September Wal-Mart first announced that it was making a select group of generic medications available in Florida at $4 for a 30-day supply.  That move generated national attention, and Wal-Mart went on to roll out that program at all of its 3,800 pharmacies.  Wal-Mart also expanded its list to include a total of 331 prescriptions.  The list of available generics is available at:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=5431

The move was copied by Target, and other pharmacies have been under pressure to make generics available for lower prices as well.

Critics, including the National Community Pharmacists Association, have been quick to point out that there are almost 4,000 generic drugs on the market, so Wal-Mart’s highly publicized initiative actually only covers a small proportion of the available generics.  And because of insurance coverage, many of the Wal-Mart generics actually cost consumers $4 or less at their local pharmacies.  So there’s really not much to Wal-Mart’s program, right?

I think there are several reasons to celebrate Wal-Mart’s move, and to give the giant retailer credit for a role in addressing health care costs.  Note:

• The prescriptions on Wal-Mart’s generic list cover 14 of the 20 largest selling generics, so the program actually covers a majority of the generics that consumers actually use
• There has been a lot of positive attention generated for generics, and consumers now have yet another reason to ask their doctor, “Isn’t there a generic available for that expensive brand drug you prescribed?”
• The $4 number sticks in people’s memories, and helps them set a mental benchmark for health care costs, enlisting them as cost-conscious consumers.  The next time that person sees a $70 prescription cost, he or she is going to start asking questions.

Wal-Mart has done a poor job of offering health benefits to its own employees, for which it has been appropriately criticized.  At the same time, though, Wal-Mart has taken a leadership role in bringing low-cost medical care to consumers through in-store medical clinics, and on balance deserves credit for trying to bring efficiencies of scale to our dysfunctional and dangerous health care system.