Pharmacists in the Post-Dispatch …

… is the perfect excuse for me to link the Post‘s article with my case study about pharmacy privatization from last year. The Post-Dispatch article primarily details how neighborhood pharmacies are struggling in competition against corporate pharmacies, despite the increasing demand for prescription drugs from our aging population.

One thing that could help is for more governments to do what St. Louis County did in 2003 and privatize the pharmacy portions of the local public health care system. All of the local pharmacies in St. Louis County are able to participate in the public health system because LDI, a pharmacy benefits company, has the county contract (won through competitive bidding), and neighborhood pharmacies all accept the LDI card. If more local governments did this, it would save taxpayers money, improve options for citizens using the public health case system, and benefit local businesses. There is absolutely no downside to this, as my case study demonstrated. (The only potential downside could be government pharmacists losing their jobs, but because the article emphasizes the incredible demand for pharmacists, I don’t need to point out they wouldn’t be out of work for long.)