Health care for the masses… been to Wal-Mart lately?
I was munching on a Big Mac at a Wal-Mart in Rohnert Park, CA, some 50 miles north of San Francisco this afternoon and looked up to note a menu of health care services on a shingle a few feet from the Mickey D. Wal-Mart, which already offers $3 monthly rxs on generic drugs, posts disclaimers dissociating themselves from the “new kind of doctor’s office” operating under their roof, known as Quick Health www.quickhealth.com . Health care in California has hit the wall and none of the US presidential “candidates” are doing much better. So, how ’bout $59 for a comprehensive physical exam. Or $29 for a full liver funtion blood panel. Want a cholesterol & lipid blood profile, twenty nine bucks. Drug screening, $49. Rapid strep test $29. HIV $69. Pregnancy test $19. Flu shot $19. Hep A $79. Hep B $149. Pelvic exam $79. Ear lavage (for earwax blockage) $39. Pneumonia immunization $49. TB skin test $29. The nurse at the desk speaks English and Spanish. These services are also being tested in some cities in the state of Idaho. Reminds me somewhat of what one finds in Mexico City at mega labs like Laboratorios Polanco, where, if you know what you need, you can go to a “storefront” medical office and purchase your own tests, which, sometimes are “on sale.” Like Sy Syms says… an educated consumer is our best customer.  This health care market percolates from the bottom up. Hilla’s “top down” solution, and the rest of the “top down” solutions, fuhgeddaboudit.
Posted: January 30th, 2008 under Ain't That America, Health Care, The Primary Season.
Comments: 9
Comments
Comment from Max
Time: January 31, 2008, 2:19 am
Are their drugs made in China? If so, better be careful!
Comment from timr
Time: January 31, 2008, 10:08 am
Groom, storefront medical clinics seem to be in many states, I have read about them starting up in MN about 4-5 years ago, and there are several in the San Antonio area inside some of our local supermarkets- HEB- and a few in some of the Walmarts(hearsay only, I refuse to shop in Walmart for anything)
Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: January 31, 2008, 10:33 am
Any livers for sale?
Comment from timr
Time: January 31, 2008, 11:03 am
Groom, off topic, but I thought you might find this’interesting’. 1984 is getting a lot closer, this should be brought to a screeching halt!
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/01/18/all-your-internets-are-belong-to-att-the-nsa/
Comment from Groom Lake
Time: January 31, 2008, 1:06 pm
For livers, Josh, I would talk to the folks who are the “outsource” for the US government organ donation program, the UNOS (united network for organ sharing) and they are in Richmond, VA. They do provide tissue typing technology to Mexico and other neighbors in the Monroe Doctrine region of “the Americas.” You can also try to find musician David Crosby, who got a new one. Actually, the place for livers and kidneys is Sao Paulo, Brasil.
Comment from Groom Lake
Time: January 31, 2008, 1:12 pm
Timr. The issue isn’t that the clinics have existed before, sure they have. But where they are located (in Walmarts) how they are mass marketing themselves, who they are reaching out for- their target audience/market- their bilingual focus, pricepoint. These are not strong suits for folks like Cigna, Kaiser. Oddly enough, Christians,Roman Catholics, engaged in religious work, have a good feel for this bottom up marketing, but the suits, fugheddaboudit. People have in the US to intuit what government can and can’t do because the pols have too much job security at stake to be up front on it. And it is quite evident from the tenor of the presidential debates that nobody, I mean nobody, gives a hoot about the underclass.
Comment from Groom Lake
Time: January 31, 2008, 5:30 pm
Wondering if the drugs are made in China really shows the “who’s part of the problem” on this issue. China has nothing to do with it, Max. Manchukuo-phobia returns. How many guys named Hideki now play in the Major Leagues in the US. Drugs made in Mexico are made by the same companies, to the same standards, and a lot of the generics there are same quality. US generics, like most US pills are made on the US territory (some call it colony) of Puerto Rico. Look at the big picture. What’s your Myers-Briggs anyway, dude?
Comment from Max
Time: February 1, 2008, 4:44 am
That the drugs in the US are OK. We have 450 sick today from Chinese food. it seems that they used a very strong pesticide.
Japan has extreme quality standards. That is why American beef is such an issue.
However, Japanese PM Fukuda just made a very deep visit to China. He made a point of visiting the birthplace of Confucius, and called China the backbone of Japanese culture. I would say that Japan is taking a definite Chinese tilt.
Last year however, we had a huge string of food scandals, all of them Japanese. Basically, they involved selling products as high grade at high grade prices, when they were simply average beef and poultry.
Comment from timr
Time: February 1, 2008, 11:52 am
Groom totally agree, but still have a question. In most store front clinics you might have a nurse practitioner or a physisians assistant. Somewhere in the background there has to be an MD or DO doesn’t there? Can a NP or a PA write a script? How do they work that out in Ca?
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