Should Wal-Mart go into the healthcare business?

I enjoyed your article and it is certainly thought provoking. However, the idea of such a large corporation entering the healthcare industry causes many of us, non-profits and especially small rural hospitals, to flinch. Yes, they could certainly take better care of their own but at the same time would infringe in our market share. We are already struggling with physician-owned specialty hospitals eroding our patient base and this would be another obstacle in the healthcare road.
Thanks for your insight. EH

Wal-mart and healthcare

Initially in the history of Health, all healthcare issues, clinics and hospital were arrangement by physician, nurses or healthcare related personal, dealing with true patient care, trying to grow to increase the cover of more patients, and in later year getting some profit. This last issue is the only one seen by many independent or business group today’s days, were they stand just for profit and no for real healthcare, these individuals are no built inside with compassion nor love for health. All these groups are no contributing to improve the healthcare system but instead to take part of the cake for them, increasing the Spence’s consumer, and the worse… the government let this industry to do their trade. So, why can not Wal-mart get in the health business? at least they are shaking some grounds, for bad or good?
The thinking of less costly medication and some clinics are no bad idea, few problems comes to my mind, one of them is the use of only nurse practitioners and for simplicity of disease to be treated, this issue leave the burden of the complex cases and the poor healthcare on physicians, this topic will increase the liability for the rest of the practitioners, which is already very high now days, and further increase in defensive medicine.

Sure they'll go for the easy stuff (clinics and generics) but why would the most profit hungry company in the world go after a market in which you have to supply all the services (e.g. hospitals doing basically all of health care), most services are supplied at a loss, and significant chunks of the customers can't and don't pay for them?

Methinks Anne is being a touch cynical here....

This idea has real merit. Wal-Mart is a brilliant retailer and it would be superb if they could deliver a health care model that would put our existing, broken health care system on notice that it can't just continue to overcharge employers and employees for basic medical care.

Too bad Wal-Mart can't take on providing public schools, too, for this is another system that is completely broken and not serving the children, parents or society-at-large!

Walmart should not go into the healthcare business. They are trying to do the community some good, as well as their business which I see nothing wrong with, but at some stores across America they cannot even manage their "Tire & Lube Express" as they claim to be professionals.
Could you imagine some of the workers they would hire with a degree or not? Druggies, theafs, and God knows what else. I just don't think a Walmart would be suitable for health care. They are good at what they do, which is retail but I personally don't think they could manage with health care.

Walmart should not go into the health care business. If you are uneployed or underpaid now, you have walmart to thank for farming all their business out to china. Walmart's mission is to lower their prices til they run everyone else out of business, then raise them back to the high rates. If you value health care at all do not let Walmart to get involved. Force Walmart to offer better health care plans to employees. They should have to since they are underpaid on average. I believe if we all boycotted Walmart for 6 mos, we could reduce their cash flow, bankrupting them essentially. Then American could go back to producing our own goods and most people could find gainful employment. The key to American economy is to buy American, if you like your house and you want to eat. It is coming down to being equilibrated to the wages of the average Chinese and we have Walmart to thank for that. This is the absolute truth.

I think it's a great idea!

At a time when health care costs rise every year, something needs to happen to break the cycle. You don't have to be a fan of Walmart to realize they've built the most successful and powerful retail company in the world. By using free market concepts, they attract millions of value-oriented customers.

Would a Walmart clinic appeal to everyone? Of course not. But, I live in an affluent area and the local Walmart has recently doubled in size. And, there are plenty of expensive cars in their parking lot.

What Walmart would bring to health care industry is REAL competition and REAL choice for everyone, everywhere. Universal healthcare doesn't have to mean Government mandated insurance for everyone.

Great article. An idea whose time may have come.

With the recent closure of the CheckUps clinics in about 23 Walmarts in the south, it is apparent the cost of even nurse practitioners is prohibitivley expensive. I think Wal-mart should partner with an experienced company like HCA and let them manage the clinics in all 2000 sites planned. Wal-Mart should lease out the clinic space for only $1 per year and provide it's "point of sale terminals" to transact the clinic fees and provide that data to HCA at the end of each day. HCA should provide a pc capable of webcaming a physician and patient experience with a nurse or walmart associate staffed to assist the patients. The Physician could then electronically send the patient prescription to the walmart instore pharmacy. For more serious procedures the patient will be referred to a local HCA hospital and Physician for outpatient service.

Government should provide employers incentives like tax breaks and credits for providing employees with affordable healthcare options. Also establishing employer Health Savings Accounts for their employees should be a priority and have tax credit implications for all contributions. After all uninsured people end up costing the government more money and reducing the effectiveness of the existing healthcare system by overcrowding the emergency rooms across the nation. About 60% of those ER visits are non-emergency according to a recent survey. So if Walmart wants to keep their employees happy and generate more customer traffic to their stores they should sponsor the "WalMart Clinic" and subsidize it by partnering with a proven leader in healthcare (HCA).

Great article. Let's hope the next President reads this and shows some real leadership to a hurting America.

Medicine is shifting from the hospital to the outpatient clinic. Cutting-edge science (medical genomics) is making it possible.

We published a paper 5 1/2 years ago showing that it was possible to prevent 90% of kidney failure in the US. Curiously, nobody publicized it, and Medicare, which pays $25 billion a year for dialysis and kidney transplantation, had no interest.

Our approach just uses already existing BP pills. The titration is simple enough for a nurse practitioner or pharmacist to do easily.

Walmart would be an ideal partner for rolling this out to our nation's 45 million uninsured patients (I just became one of them myself today). So would any large pharmacy chain that's installing walk-in clinics, like Walgreen's.

Health savings accounts (HSA's), a high-deductible health insurance plan ("catastrophic" hospitalization), and cheap meds are definitely the way to solve our healthcare crisis.

Healthcare outcomes can already be improved, even though the healthcare bureaucracies don't want them to be. We just need a new business model that rewards preventive medicine. Wal-mart could do it with one stroke of the pen.

Dave Moskowitz MD FACP
CEO
GenoMed, Inc.
www.genomed.com

Excellent Idea. ost of the hospitals and doctors are flecing the middleclass with high fees to pay for thee Lexus and gucci suits. Walmart will make medical facilities available to average joe at average prices.