Wal-Mart: Give $4 Prescriptions But Saddle Everyone Else With Price of Health Care for Their Employees

You may recall all the excited blather about Wal-Mart's announcement that it would offer prescriptions at just $4. However, few bothered to notice that the $4 prescription was by far the exception rather than the rule - all Wal-Mart wants to do is kill off smaller pharmacies with a bait-and-switch.

But here's something I pointed out at the time - and am reminded of with the news that Wal-Mart will use far MORE part-time employees (rather than full-timers who get benefits like health insurance) - Wal-Mart for all its low prices ends up costing just about every taxpayer (except the extremely wealthy whom the Bushies think need to pay less tax than anyone) much more than they save at Wal-Mart because we have to pay for the health care Wal-Mart WON'T provide for its employees. We pay Wal-Mart's share for hospitalizations, for Welfare-Mart and for other support for the poor because Wal-Mart works very hard at keeping everyone but their owners poor.

Remember too that Wal-Mart is one of those places where their pharmacists are welcome to choose NOT to fill a prescription because it "offends" the delicate moral sensibilities of their pharmacists. Many of these have zero problem filling a Viagra prescription but take moral umbrage as a 'script for birth control. Yeah.