Healthcare The Capitalist Way

[Aloysius]

Exactly, if it's the stores paying the shipping, then everything can balance out. Wal-Mart pays all the shipping to get it to all of those locations, and must deduct that from the savings they offer; so too would these local stores do it.

of course, this doesn't account for the fact that these big-time suppliers would probably just raise their prices to these 3000 independent stores. there would have to be a guild system to mimic the same type of pressure Wal-Mart places on suppliers... ie if you don't give us this good deal then all the members of our guild of 3000 local independent stores will refuse to buy from you.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1069464' date='Sep 21 2006, 03:48 PM']
Yes, they would be making 3,000 separate shipments, but Wal-Mart still has to pay to get that product from their national center of distribution to the local branches. The independent local store would only have to pay extra for their own individual shipment. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has to pay to get the product to their national headquarters, and THEN they have to pay to get that product to the local branches. The independent store isjust paying to have the product taken from the supplier to their central location.
[/quote]
Economy of scale. You take a fixed cost and spread it over multiple items. What it costs for a UPS guy to stop and drop off a box is much more than what 1 box costs to be sent with pallets of other goods in a semi-truck.

I don't want to really hurt your feelings, but you are arguing without sufficient knowledge of business or economics. Superficially it sounds good, but you ignore tons of fact that make up the real economics of business.

A small outfit cannot compete as a discount outlet with a large out-fit like Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart was a monopoly, then why all the other grocery stores, mall stores, strip stores, etc? The other businesses operate in other more specialized markets. Some items are so common, they are called 'commodities'. If you want cheap jeans, you go to a place the specializes in cheap clotheing. If you want a suit, do you buy it from Wal-Mart? I don't think they even carry them. The economy of the scale they have to work on cannot afford the floor space for high margin, low volume goods. You go to MensWear, or JC Penney's, or a specialty store. Wal-Mart couldn't begin to compete with them. There are lot's of items that fall in the same category, otherwise one company would have taken over everything just based on competitive strength.

Business competition is organic, not monolithic. Certain responses to market needs have to be specialized to be efficient, while other responses is efficient in large scale only.

[Lounge Daddy]

ok – so is Wal-Mart the bad guy, or is it “big pharmaceutical” ?

I know the fad is to slam wal-mart for everything, and george bush for everything else – but the legal drug dealers, you have to admit, have been almost as criminal as big oil – and it is nice that finally one American retailer is in a position to call some shots on big pharmaceutical

and wal-mart is offering generic drugs to the un-insured at a great price
how cool is that!

And this same retailer has been setting up gas stations… will they target big oil next?
Oh, how I hope so

Will the left somehow blame wal-mart for offering discounted gas to us next? You can bet on stupidity from the left every time.

[Aloysius]

Wal-Mart is clearly the good guy here. While I do support and share Era's pipe dreams, in the real world this action by Wal-Mart is a great thing.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1069481' date='Sep 21 2006, 04:18 PM']
Wal-Mart is clearly the good guy here. While I do support and share Era's pipe dreams, in the real world this action by Wal-Mart is a great thing.
[/quote]
Pipe dream?
More like a psilicybin hallucination.

I bet you buy gas from Citgo instead of BP or Exxon because they're smaller.

[annehladik]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1069481' date='Sep 21 2006, 06:18 PM']
Wal-Mart is clearly the good guy here. While I do support and share Era's pipe dreams, in the real world this action by Wal-Mart is a great thing.
[/quote]
I think it's wonderful that Wal-Mart's endeavor will be helping many individuals afford their health care. I've treated many patients that have such a constant struggle paying for their medications that they may juggle which of several prescriptions they take a certain month. They'll neglect their blood pressure medicine one month, then their cholesterol medicine the next, et cetera. They do not qualify for government subsidy of their medicines, for any of various reasons, and many of them don't want to have to rely on the government for their welfare. But they also have a hard time taking care of their own health for any of a number of financial reasons. Are we really to argue that to make it easier for them to pay for their medicines is a bad thing? And how charitable is it, in reality, to imply that they should have to pay more to take care of themselves so that we may gain a sense of moral superiority over some nebulous concept of nefarious "big business?"

Edited September 21, 2006 by CameBackHome

[Sojourner]

I don't typically shop at Wal-mart, largely because there hasn't been one in a location convenient to me for quite some time. I don't think Wal-mart is inherently any more evil than any other big business ... and honestly, I think that litigation has done a good job of cleaning up many of the abuses big businesses are prone to (poor treatment of workers, unfair competition, etc.).

I'm not necessarily morally opposed to shopping at Wal-mart any more than I am morally opposed to shopping at Target or Meijer or any other big box. I do, however, think it is in a community's best interest to support local businesses when possible, and I try to do that when I can.

Honestly, since I'm now without prescription drug coverage for the first time in a long time, $4 generic prescriptions sounds really nice. If it were implemented up here ... heck, you might see me visiting mapquest to find my way to the nearest Wal-mart.

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1069220' date='Sep 21 2006, 12:10 PM']
My prediction:
Socialists and liberal politicians and activists who would rather have us all on government welfare programs will complain that Wal-Mart is now pushing their pharmacy to unfairly push other pharmacies out of business – thus claiming again the “evils” of Wal-Mart and capitalism in general.
You might be able to buy generic prescription drugs for $4 rather than $10 - $30 at your local wal-mart store… insured or uninsured.
If this program works in Florida, and is opened to other states - this will be a great thing.
[/quote]
[url="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/article_1203639.php/Democrats_hail_Wal-Mart%60s_discounted_drugs"]Democrats hail Wal-Mart's discounted drugs[/url]

well maybe not [i]all[/i] liberal politicians

[homeschoolmom]

If my mom (age 70) could get all of her generic drugs at $4 a month each (she has a kitchen counter full), she would save hundreds of dollars a month. She's not in a "do I buy medicine or food?" situation, but it would be nice for her to be able to not worry about every penny.

[Era Might]

People seem to be misunderstanding.

My diversion had nothing to do with Wal-Mart offering cheap prescriptions.

I was responding to Lounge Daddy's comment about big business, and its relatedness to the conservative loathedness (is that a word?) of big government.

I think it's great that people will be able to buy cheap prescriptions. It beats organizing trips to Canada.

But then again, I think it's great that single mothers are able to apply for welfare.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1069517' date='Sep 21 2006, 07:14 PM']
People seem to be misunderstanding.

My diversion had nothing to do with Wal-Mart offering cheap prescriptions.

I was responding to Lounge Daddy's comment about big business, and its relatedness to the conservative loathedness (is that a word?) of big government...
[/quote]

ok – a company answers to a peoples needs –as opposed to government dependency…
but you question these options?

yes you should be on the losing end of this discussion
and I hope like heck other with you are on the losing end of this
I want, and others want – the free market to bring cheep medicine long before the government to bring tax subsidized inefficient medicine…


long live free business

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1069361' date='Sep 21 2006, 03:38 PM']
"Big business" ....It’s what I call practical and logical efficiency

As opposed to fat bureaucratic compartmentalized wasteful oblivion of a government pigsty
[/quote]
You're right, the former sounds much better. Anything that sounds good can't be wrong! :

[Socrates]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1069464' date='Sep 21 2006, 03:48 PM']
Yes, they would be making 3,000 separate shipments, but Wal-Mart still has to pay to get that product from their national center of distribution to the local branches. The independent local store would only have to pay extra for their own individual shipment. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has to pay to get the product to their national headquarters, and THEN they have to pay to get that product to the local branches. They may pay less to the supplier, but they have that extra expense to distribute product among their branches; whereas the independent store is just paying to have the product taken from the supplier to their central location.

So even if the supplier charged more to ship to the independent store, that independent store doesn't have the costs that Wal-Mart does to ship the product to thousands of local branches, and so the difference in savings evens itself out.
[/quote]
Basically, what Anomaly and Bullnachinashop are saying here is right. Big retailers like Wal-mart have a huge advantage over the "little guy" when it comes to being able to sell large varieties of product at lower prices. (I'm not saying this "moral" or "immoral," "just" or "unjust," but that's simply the way it is.) By being able to buy huge quantities of product in bulk, they can afford to sell them at cheaper prices than the small, local retailer.

Wal-mart and other mega-retailers are not the huge businesses they are because people say "mwahaha - we're evil conservative capitalists, so we'll shop at Wal-mart rather than the ma-and-pa corner shop!" No, people shop at Wal-mart and other big retailers because they sell stuff at cheaper prices, often have a greater variety of stock, and offer the shopper the convenience of being able to buy a variety of items at one location, rather than having to shop at a large number of different stores.
I'm not saying here that big businesses are superior to small businesses or anything, I'm simply pointing out the facts that give large retailers a business advantage over "the little guy." Of course, small local businesses have advantages too, but it is harder for the small business to profit.
If small businesses could afford to sell things at the same low prices as the mega-retailers, they would.

To use a recent concrete example, I was recently talking to the owner of a local outdoors outfitter store, asking about when a shipment of whitewater kayaks would arrive. He was explaining that the kayak company would not give him an offer that would be profitable for him, as he would have to order more kayaks than he could sell to get them at a profitably discounted rate.

I generally try to favor small locally-owned businesses when I can, but it is often cheaper and more convenient to go to a large retailer. Shoppers are free to make choices, as Era Might notes, and I generally prefer voluntary decisions to the punitive government action often advocated by so-called "distributists" against "big business." It think government should cut taxes and create other incentives that would help small businesses, rather than focus on "redistributing" property.


As to "big business" vs "big government," I think the important difference is that the customer can decide who he does business with - for instance, he can consciously decide never to shop at Wal-mart - but he cannot freely and lawfully pick and choose what government programs, etc. to pay taxes on.
And a business which is incompetent and inefficient, and cannot properly satisfy customers/clients, will soon go out of business.
The same cannot be said for government bureaucracies and programs, which we are all forced to support with our tax money, no matter how wasteful, useless, or morally repugnant they may be.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Socrates

[DAF]

Maybe somebody's already sked, but what about people with like serious drug addictions? Won't this make it easier for them to feed that habit?

Not that an international company should not sell a new product becuase people abuse it, but are there any sort of safety measures or anything?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

No matter who you are, you must admit that it was evil for Walmart to try essentially to bribe the government of Phoenix to obtain land for it from a small business owner by imminent domain.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='DAF' post='1069840' date='Sep 21 2006, 10:44 PM']
Maybe somebody's already sked, but what about people with like serious drug addictions? Won't this make it easier for them to feed that habit?

Not that an international company should not sell a new product becuase people abuse it, but are there any sort of safety measures or anything?
[/quote]
Well, you still have to have a prescription.