Little Brother Forum

Parija B. Kavilanz/CNNMoney.com/September 27, 2007

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart announced Thursday that it has extended its year-long $4 generic prescription drugs program to include 24 new prescriptions.

The company said the program will now cover more categories to include glaucoma, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), fungal infections and acne.

Fertility and prescription birth control will also be included at $9. The retailer said that its prices for these medications will save women an estimated $15 to $21 a month, or $180 to $250 annually.

“The savings were a big deal 12 months ago and an even bigger deal today for customers struggling with spiraling healthcare costs,” Dr. John Agwunobi, Wal-Mart senior vice president and president for the professional services division, said in a statement.

Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500), the world’s largest retailer, launched its $4 generic drugs initiative a year ago in all its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club locations. During that period, Wal-Mart claims that it has saved customers a total of $613 million.

In a conference call with reporters an analysts, Wal-Mart Stores chief operating officer Bill Simon said it calculated the total savings by calculating the price difference between the branded drugs and the $4 generic versions and multiplying it with the number of prescriptions.

“While we will continue to improve and expand our generic drugs program, we call on government, businesses and medical establishments to find a viable solution to the healthcare crisis in the country,” Simon said. (more…)

August 8, 2007

CAPE CORAL/(AP) — Seven popular antibiotics will be available free from Publix supermarkets for people with prescriptions, even if they have a health insurance provider that would pay for them, the company and Gov. Charlie Crist said Monday.

Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs, among the most commonly prescribed, will be available at all 684 of the chain’s pharmacies in five states. Publix said it is not limiting the number of prescriptions that customers may fill for free.

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Editor’s Note/August 8, 2007

Costco offers best buy on generic prescription meds, followed by Sam’s Club. For example, the generic of Zocor (a widely prescribed cholesterol drug) is $90 at Walgreens, $80 at CVS, $12 at Costco and $6 at Sam’s Club. The generic of Zoloft (a widely prescribed antidepressant) is $74 at Walgreens, $70 at CVS, $6 at Costco at and Sam’s Club it was $5.

What???

Check this out. Instead of pricing generics up from the wholesale cost, places like Walgreen’s and CVS discount from the cost of brand name drugs. A generic may cost them $3 at wholesale, but they charge $70 or $80 because it’s still less than than they would charge the consumer for the brand name. Places like CVS and Walgreens push generic drugs hard, not because they want to save you money. They make a ton in profits!

Shop carefully. It pays to do some checking around. Many pharmacies now list prices online. If not, a simple phone call will get you the cost to get your prescription filled. Check out the price for both name brand and generic.

Not a member of Sam’s Club or Costco? Patients are allowed to use the pharmacies of clubs such as Costco and Sam’s Club, even if they aren’t members.

City is first in state to pass such a measure

By Kathleen Rowland/Columbus Dispatch/May 22, 2007

In front of more than a dozen residents wearing peach “Impeach Bush and Cheney” buttons, the Oberlin City Council voted unanimously to ask the House of Representatives to do just that.

Last night’s vote backs a petition signed by 648 Oberlin residents and makes Oberlin the first city in Ohio to formally support impeaching the president and vice president. Fifty-seven other cities and Vermont’s legislature have passed similar measures. (more…)

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss/Reuters/July 13, 2007

BOSTON - Massachusetts’ state pension fund, one of America’s biggest and most successful, plans to sell some $80 million in holdings of companies that invest in Sudan, becoming the latest investor to protest violence there. (more…)

ConsumerAffairs.com/August 1, 2006

U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who highlighted the dangers of obesity and second-hand smoke, has quit, effective July 31, just a month after he released a comprehensive report on the dangers of secondhand smoke. A letter circulated on Capitol Hill informed Hill staffers of his resignation.

It’s unclear who decided it was time for Carmona to go. (more…)

Mr. Chairman:

Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them.

It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.

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