Posted on 08/07/2007 4:44:54 AM PDT by TheTruthAintPretty
CAPE CORAL - Publix supermarket chain said today it will make seven common prescription antibiotics available for free, joining other major retailers in trying to lure customers to their stores with cheap medications.
The oral antibiotics, representing the most commonly filled at the chain's pharmacies, will be available at no cost to anyone with a prescription as often as they need them, Publix CEO Charlie Jenkins Jr. said. Fourteen-day supplies of the seven drugs will be available at all 684 of the chain's pharmacies in five Southern states.
The prescription antibiotics available under the program are amoxicillin, cephalexin, penicillin VK, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, and ciprofoxacin.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Except the customers will pay in higher grocery prices.
Socialized medicine on the march!
Naw, just a loss leader :-)
My husband just passed away, and he was getting blood shots that cost 8,000 and 10,000 thousand a pop. He was getting them every three weeks.
When WalMarts(3) came to our town, Publix food prices fell.
Thats the free market at work, not Socialism, although I share your disdain for socialized medicine
This is good news for those who need antibiotics. I just hope this doesn’t lead peopel to over use them.
My sympathies to you for your loss.
Isn't giving away antibiotics dangerous to the tune of; with more antibiotics being used, more drug resistant strains of bacteria/viruses are made?
Wal-Mart takes a lot of flack here for a variety of causes - their $4 prescriptions being one of them. But according to a Wal-Mart executive when thy started the program, they still make a profit off each $4 prescription...
Now - on to Publix - I guarantee they do not make a profit on medications that they charge $0 for. BUT - they will at least attempt to turn that around, as you said, via passing the cost through other items, including groceries.
The danger is - people will start to want more and more for “free”, because they don’t see the direct cost of those drugs. OH, the cost is there on other items (kind of like socialized medicine, where the costs are just extracted via taxes).
Will those who take free medicine be certain to take their antibiotics until the prescriptions run out or will they just take them until the symptons go away leading to new strains that are resistant to the antibiotics?
I’m sorry for your loss. Hope you are doing well.
Well I guess the cynical mind could create a conspiracy out of that. Give the cheap drugs away for free, to the point where they become worthless to increase the market for the more expensive drugs. I can see the anti-big Drug kooks go wild over such speculation.
That was my first thought as well. How many people will go to the doctor insisting they need an antibiotic for what ails them, simply because it won’t cost them a dime? And how many doctors will prescribe it anyway?
I’m sorry about your husband....
I think doctors are too quick to prescribe medicine. I don't know if they are paid off by the pharmaceutical companies for prescriptions but it sure seems like it. At the least, doctors probably figure if they don't prescribe something, then the patient might think they aren't doing a good job.
During routine checkups, doctors are always trying to prescribe pills. Something for high blood pressure, something for cholesterol, something for stress, something for depression and suddenly you too are a pill-popping junkie with way too many trips to CVS and Walgreens and other places like it with their overpriced greeting cards, wrapping paper, snack items and goofy holiday decorations that you really don't need.
I wonder if this isn't all just a big conspiracy by Hallmark to get people hooked on pills so that they can buy their greeting cards. I mean, have you ever been in a pharmacy that didn't have Hallmark greeting cards?
Seriously, human civilization got along just fine without all these multi-colored pills.
Other than a prescription for antibiotics about 15 years ago for a sinus infection, I don't believe I've ever had a pill to take and I'd like to keep it that way. Also, when it is somebody's birthday, I find some way to recognize it without some hokey greeting card.
We must resist the lure of pills and Hallmark greeting cards.
Physicians are supposed to use caution in prescribing antibiotics, for the patient’s own good.
You still have to get a Rx from the doctor. If people overuse antibiotics, it’s only because physicians overprescribe them. Just MHO.
Will a lot of people start badgering their physicians for the drugs because “they’re free at Publix”?
What will probably happen is that physicians will tell their patients to go to Publix if they need the drugs on that list. Doctors are already doing that for Wal-Mart. In either case the retailer wins more business, especially for impulse buy items that carry higher profit margins.
Let the decades catch up with you, then you’ll probably need lots of pills.
You didn’t get the generic then. Public is giving away generic drugs...not name brands.
I thought the one-pill antibiotic was Zithromax (azithromycin).
You have to have a prescription to get them.
I see this more as a marketing move to get people into Publix. I find their prices to high, and rarely shop there. But, if I’m already in the store to pick up antibiotics that I need, I’ll probably pick up bread and milk and something for dinner. This works very well for Publix and their sales.
Some hospital administrators are multiple-booking doctor's appointments. The doctors are under intense pressure to get the patients moved though quickly, so as to emulate the profit-per-square-foot of a McDonald's.
About the only answer is the "Prescribe and dump" solution. I know several doctors who have left their practices because of things like this, and the HMO paperwork, and accountants practicing medicine. One opened a "cash only walk-in clinic". Another retired early. Another went to work for the NEJoM. Another is leaving a hospital this month to work in a Womens' shelter. Another opened a Member-Only practice; He loves it, the patients love it.
They are as disgusted as anyone else.
That said, there are marvellous new drugs all the time that do good..But I know people who are so overprescribed their quality of life has been ruined.
Copy editors are a little stupid in the mornings.
I totally agree. I like my GP, but he wants to prescribe a pill for everything. He wanted to put me on BP meds because my BP was high in his office (and I kept telling him it was only high in his office...I hate doctor's offices, LOL.) He didn't believe me...until I was hospitalized and he saw the hospital records where my BP was normal the entire time.
Then my cholesterol was slightly elevated...he wanted to prescribe a statin...no thanks, I'll just take more fish oil, and the cholesterol came down.
I have very slight bone loss which is pretty normal for someone my age and out comes the Rx pad for a osteoporosis drug...no thanks, once again.
I'm not against drugs...I have MS, and I do take a couple drugs for that.
But I don't want drugs to correct every minor variance from the "norm."
Thanks
Thank you!
Thanks. I am doing very well, all things considered.
Just wondering...where do you shop that you find lower prices than Publix. I’ve tried all the groceries in our area, and Publix is less expensive than the others (Albertsons, Winn-Dixie, Sweetbay.) Walmart is cheaper, but anybody shopping at Walmart needs to realize if you’re buying meat there (they add 11 percent in extra weight to every lb of meat by adding what they call “natural juices.”) Plus Walmart in our area has awful produce (they were out of bananas last week) and many other items are often out of stock.
I only shop at Publix....
Not really. Sorry for your loss, but ...
Those drugs listed are extremely low cost drugs. Cephalexin and ampicillin were used extensively when I became a pharmacist in 1972. All are generic products. Giving them away is a loss-leader situation. With respect to erythropoietin or Neupogen or whatever he got, those drugs are extremely expensive from the manufacturers. That doesn't justify it--in fact, I have changed 180 degrees in my thinking about big Pharma and also about the markups of hospitals (I own a hospital pharmacy) to being highly critical.
But the economics aren't as simple as it appears on the surface.
They will make a profit on the other stuff you buy in the store while picking up your free antibiotic, bread milk, eggs, TP, cereals etc................Just get you in the store and you will buy something.........
Kroger tends to be cheaper, as did the locally-owned grocery that I used to shop at.
The one thing I do when I grocery shop is I shop the sales. Thus, I stock pile up on the cheaper prices, and then rotate the meat out of the freezer according to my mood that day. For instance this week we’ll be having the chicken breasts that I bought two weeks ago, saving about four dollars by buying it on sale and eating it later.
The advantage is I will feed a family of four for about ten dollars, instead of eating out and spending thirty-five.
an inexpensive marketing ploy....very good.
most antibiotic I have bought in recent years are way below my copay.
This great news.
We don’t have Kroger in our area. Like I said, I shop at Publix because in our area, it is the best value for the highest quality food.
Prayers offered. Sorry to hear that. ((CC))
Quite possibly one of the bestest posts ever.
Publix is a very well run enterprise.
“My husband just passed away, and he was getting blood shots that cost 8,000 and 10,000 thousand a pop. He was getting them every three weeks.”
I gotcha beat. My wife’s nephew is one of the worst case hemophiliacs in modern history. Yale hospital in New Haven uses him as their “case study” example. He gets three shots of factor a week at $3000.00 a pop. He’s already maxed out his fathers 1 million cap on the insurance policy and he’s 16 years old.
...but,it keeps him alive.....
And this isn't socialized medicine. It's the kind of act that will make hillarycare less likely to happen.
Sincere sympathy to you on the loss of your husband.
My supermarket (Meijer) has been giving away antibiotics—these same ones, I think—for a while now.
Of course, the ‘free’ drugs are made overseas, most likely in China.
I’m WITH YOU - Docs are trained to PRESCRIBE in med school....and I am so sick of the “HALLMARKIZATION” of our lives. YECH!
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