How likely would you be to use a retailer like Wal-Mart for your health care?
Posted at 5:00 AM on November 23, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(38 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Health
Wal-Mart is planning to expand the health-care services it offers in its stores. Today's Question: How likely would you be to use a retailer like Wal-Mart for your health care?
Comments (38)
Just do me a favor and keep witring such trenchant analyses, OK?
Leave the sarcasm to the professionals, barracuda. ;-)
I am so gratified to read about all the people who still consider Walmart the 'evil empire.' I haven't been in one in about 6 yrs and was beginning to think I was a lone voice. Would never use them for health care.
If we wonder why this economy can no longer support us, just think about what Walmart (and like companies) have done to undermine jobs in this country. Sam Walton and family (I know he's dead) espoused a philosophy more like Stalin than Jesus, yet he loved to bring up the Christian doctrine at worker assemblies. No doubt he's roasting in hell right now. (As will almost all the a**holes in Congress.)
Barracuda--wish you wouldn't egg on Kim and Steve, especially Kim; she should be caring for her kids instead of wasting her time writing angry diatribes based on misinformed emotions instead of facts. Can't imagine having my mom be so angry all the time.
I actually don't seem to be having much success in goading Kim into responding. =(
We'll pick it up next week, huh? Or maybe Friday? I think we all have to do our best to ensure that all internet forums have the same level of refinement of YouTube or the Strib.
"Steve, are you available for comment?
I thought you didn't want me to do that, barracuda, so I'm not today. Besides, you seem to be doing a fine job of "feeding the troll" without my help.
Next time any of you are in wal-mart walk around there look at the tags on items. Nine out of ten items will read made in china,Korea mexico or thiland. You need to search far and wide to find anything that says made in USA or Canada. Why you people put down Obama I'll never know all the man is trying to do is help the working people that whose hard earned money keeps your economy going not the hand full of billionaires who keep getting all the tax breaks. Obama only inherited an ugly mess left by two former governments that ruined and bankrupted your country in wars they had no business sticking there noses in. Sixty years from now the bush government will be in American history as the worst to rule your great nation.
I have never shopped at Walmart, would never use them as a retail health clinic and would not sign up for a drug plan with them either...but if they can do something to help their employees get some coverage, that is good, and, I'm resigned to yet another way to "get customers into the store" gimmick. Needless to say, I will not be shopping there or anywhere on Friday, Thanksgiving or anywhere there are the "bargains of the year" at the expense of over worked underpaid employees, greedy customers and profit gouging companies, like Walmart...
As a service to the group, in an effort to keep the 'discussion' moving, I am copying & pasting one of Steve the Cynic's previous responses so that Kim has something to do.
"You're changing the subject again, kimMN. It's not Obama that's keeping secrets about what's in our food; it's the amoral corporations that the Gang Of Plutocrats want to further deregulate."
Note how clever wordplay reinforces the intellectual validity of the argument!
Discuss.
Ann, why are you polluting this forum with an actual reasoned opinion? Don't you know that after 11:00 it's a free-for-all insult-n-idiocy contest? You need to post something about how your children were molested by graffiti on a train car, or tell someone they're a fascist and bemoan the fact that they haven't gotten their free abortion yet and it's almost the end of the year!!!! (I think. I don't read very much of what the trolls write, because it's largely no different from the verbal diarrhea of a presidential campaign, to which I am genetically immune.)
THIS IS MPR, dammit, and my constitutional right to engage is pointless and uninformed 'debate' on internet news stories (seriously, it's in there - check the rumbleteenth amendment) will not be abridged!
Thankfully, the staff of MPR have neither the ability nor the will to exert any sort of control over the so called conversation, and the result is a pretty annoying flame war between KimMN and Steve the Cynic. I speak for everyone here when I say that we are delighted and educated by their rhetorical skills.
Yes, there should be competition. Many of us can't afford health insurance when we are out of work. We have to have more competion. I don't need a grade A doctor to give me a prescription for something like an ear infection orsinus infection, People can go to these lower cost places instead of going to the emergency room for ordinary things
KimMN - "What everyone should be asking is why did MPR pose this question using Walmart as a clinic provider as a future choice?"
Probably because NPR (and the LA Times and others) did a story earlier this month regarding Walmart's plans to become the "largest provider of primary care services in the nation." After the story broke Walmart backed away, stating their internal documents were "over written and incorrect." (note: huge difference between primary care and the now common "clinic in a cubicle" models)
Steve, are you available for comment? We need to get your 'perspective' to ensure a balanced and rational debate about the posted question, which is, IIRC, "How awesome is it that alternate-universe President Saddam Obama insists on forcing unwed mothers to get publicly funded abortions in the office supplies aisle at Wal Mart, while his Vice President, Adolf Augustus Bush VII, accepts money from fly-by-night investment bankers to support his '5 cokes a day' habit?"
" kimMN ...Case point, Jimmy Falon TV show uses trash music of
Lying A- - B - - ch as Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman enters their stage and most of the media ignores it or excuses that total disrespect toward her. "=========================================================== you do realize that Jimmy Fallon's show is marketed as late night buffonery and comedy while Mike Huckabee markets himself as a serious political and social journalist. the fact that you would equate them helps me understand how little capacity you have for understanding the world around you. ecks-why-zeeeee.... y'r brains is leak'n out.
I've used minute clinics in Target. I've used street pharamacy/clinics in Europe. If the environment is clean, the care good and the cost reasonable... not much of a problem. what i defnitely do want is that every aspect of the computuer system, computers, records, record managment be handled ENTIRELY separate from the stores and Walmart/Target/CVS/Walreen's data management system. I mean absolute and complete separation. I don't want any potential for "Accidenta" mixing of medical records data and marketing data or sales-customer data. NONE OF IT. Medical is separate and there should be no mixing.
Somewhat likely, providing it will be a legitimate clinic, I assume.
At first I wasn't sure why this question was posed. I began wondering if MPR put it in just for some possible giggle factor, suggesting that in the future absolutely everything will come from big chain retailers (what next; McBypass Surgery?). But I think a clinic in a retail outlet doesn't seem any more strange than an optometrist's outlet or a pharmacy.
First, apologies for the double post.
How do you respond, Kim, to allegations that you are under contract with NBC News to provide canvas and burlap gowns to the cast of Friends?
Yay! Kim is finally here! I was starting to get worried.
Steve, your response?
I might use Walmart when I can trust the democratic administration to be transparent and consistent in their words vs. the gutter politics they use every day. Case point, Jimmy Falon TV show uses trash music of
Lying A- - B - - ch as Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman enters their stage and most of the media ignores it or excuses that total disrespect toward her. Imagine if the Gov. Huckabee show played that song as Michelle Obama or Pelosi came on stage???? The media would run 100 stories on how the Republicans are sexist and vile..but when the attack is on a conservative black or a conservative woman, then it is somehow OK. So I will use Walmart when I know if they are doing deals with Oabama's agencies or not....the odds are not good given the rash of scams and corruption within this administration.
Yay! Kim is finally here. I was starting to get worried.
Steve, your response?
What everyone should be asking is why did MPR pose this question using Walmart as a clinic provider as a future choice? Does Walmart have an in with the White House or has Congress leaked some new deals for them, in the name of pushing the unconstitutional Obama Health Insurance Reform act?
If people want lower health insurance then the states and Congress should allow across state competition. That is how we have low auto insurance.
In contrast to the choice of current health insurance from employers or privately bought, I can shop any state for the specific Auto coverage I need. And no, auto insurance is required in MN if you choose to drive, as in a privledge of using the roads BUT_ hold your horses_ we are not mandated to buy insurance such as those who don't drive and__ wait, there's more___ auto insurance mandated is only for liability in case you cause the injury to someone else. It does NOT force coverage for collision and comprehension to your own car.
If Obama's desire for a greater state controlled economy ( i.e. socialism) was useful, then the other socialist countries would be an immigration haven and those countries would be doing well; but they are not_ Greece and Italy bankrupt with excessive entitlements of early retirements and giving excess pensions and a guaranteed unemployment benefit for three years in one country, so who in their right mind hires young grads knowing they are on the hook for three years of benefits if they have to downsize a year later?
State controlled economies where the government is controlling health care or energy or manufacturing has never worked out. Spain tried the Green job industry mandated by the government and for each green job created, they LOST three private sector jobs. In the USA, Obama helped us lose 32 billion in green energy loans to pay back his bundlers ( e.g., Spinner, for Solyndra)
Wal-Mart is not all bad. They don't engage in price-gouging, for instance, unlike some mega-businesses. If we can't have single payer health care in America, maybe this sort of thing can be a second best to help bring costs down.
I was thinking about going to walmart or target to get a cholesterol test, having never had one yet and being 100% responsible for my own health since I haven't had insurance for years. Now that I finally have insurance I can probably go to a real doctor instead.
NEVER. I do not go to Walmart because of their coporate policies and what they have done to the world economy, so I would never let them at my health information.
I probably wouldn't go to Wal Mart, but I have gone to the Target clinic a couple of times for minor things. If Wal Mart can provide basic health care services for a reasonable price, that's good.
Nothing the "evil empire" offers or sells would entice me to even enter one of their stores. Since many of its employees are eligible for public funded healthcare and other programs, it's two-faced of them to go this route to begin with. Their sole reason for this is profit. People ought to know better than to support this corporation in any way.
For a flu shot? Pink eye? Rash? Chicken Pox? Physical? and maybe a lot of little stuff, sure.
Not going there for a sore back, possible broken bone, and lots of other more major stuff.
I think its a great idea to handle lots of the more minor stuff that does require medical attention but doesn't have to be handled in a doctor's office. They do not have to have the overhead that a doctor's office has and can offer it at lower price.
They will have to carry malpractice and umbrella insurance. They will be very aware when something is out of their league and refer someone to a doctor's office or hospital.
And yes, you can always pay more and go somewhere else, for now.
Highly to extremely unlikely.
John @ 6:41 - Walmart is offering free market healthcare, not obamacare or hillarycare or eurocare or socialism.
I wouldn't darken the door of a Wal*Mart on a good day, much less to get my health care.
Healthcare at Walmart?
"The sentiment behind Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's promise of a "better life for all" belies questionable business practices - many that have been challenged by employees, unions, environmentalists, recording artists and human rights organizations. "
Read more:
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html
Christmas shopping at 1am the morning after Thanksgiving ponied up with healthcare at Walmart?
Oy!
I might use it for the most routine things, like vaccinations, maybe a physical for a job or something. Maybe for something like Urgent Care, which lots of people already use instead of an emergency room. I probably would not use it as a primary medical service.
Wal-Mart's high efficiency and low prices have a lot to do with shipping methods and distribution networks, and then bulk volume inventory on the sales floor and poor pay and benefits for workers. Those won't transfer well to a specialized service like health care. Instead, a cheap, high patient volume clinic won't resolve health care problems beyond the most routine ones, and could even make them worse. For the un- and under-insured, there might not be any other options that are potentiall affordable, but that doesn't meant that the quality of care will be good or even acceptable.
And to all the people complaining about the ACA for this question, get serious. It leaves the current system almost entirely intact, and wouldn't force you to either government health centers or a Wal-Mart clinic. It also has exactly nothing to do with Wal-Mart opening clinics, nor with the quality or value those clinics would offer.
I have used it already. I took my wife to the Eden Prairie Walmart for something relatively minor but painful to her on a holiday evening when many other places were closed. It was really a Hennepin County Medical Center Clinic/Office within the Walmart store.
I expect the time will come when I won't have a choice. Either health care will be turned over to the free market to be governed by its jungle rules, and I'll wind up having to choose between two or three essentially identical oligopoly providers, or we'll wise up and learn from the experiences of Canada, Britain, France, etc., that health care one of those rare exceptions where socialism actually works better than the free market. Ideology is blinding us to practical solutions.
Highly unlikely. I have had terrible experiences when I tried to use their vision department. In the end it was worth paying a little more to go to an eye clinic with better service. I can't imagine it would be any different with their other healthcare services.
As long as the clinics are separated from the rest of the store. I do not like the idea of walking past a fast care clinic with potentially contagious people to buy my bananas.
Groceries and illness should be separated.
From a large City in Egypt
Yes, I would use Walmart? Unlike the clueless community activist who is currently president, I believe in free enterprise. If Walmart can provide these services at a lower cost, fantastic. I suspect Obama would rather all citizens, wait in line at a government health clinic so he can continue to expand governments role in our lives.
I will go where ever I can receive the best care for the price. I suspect that Walmart will deliver the same as or better services at a lower cost than our government.
If they do health care as well as they do vision care, I will probably get all the basics done at Wal-Mart.
Love Wal-Mart or hate Wal-Mart, they are successful because they meet people's needs efficiently and effectively.
I personally don't shop their stores. Not sure why; just doesn't work for me. But my eye doctor has been at Wal-Mart for 10 years. Pleasant. Qualified. Fast. Cost-effective. Works for me.
If Wal-Mart starts providing more healthcare services, they will likely do it right, and new providers like Wal-Mart doing it right is part of the answer.
That's where our health care is heading. Obama care, your cancer treatment is in aisle 34.
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