All I can say about the announcement by Aetna that it will exclude Walgreens from receiving reimbursements under its Illinois Medicaid plan is that CVS/Aetna is a vertically integrated monopoly acting in a way that injures customers. It’s a textbook case for being sued under antitrust laws.
Pharmacy chains owning insurance companies are monsters that should not be allowed to exist. Forcing it to accept Walgreens as well is not a solution. The only solution is breaking the company up.
Wow, I had no idea. Yeah, I agree that’s bad and should be prevented.
During steel shortages should The Inland Steel Company have been forced to supply product not to its distribution arm, Ryerson, but to US Steel’s or Bethlehem Steel’s distributors?
If a hurricane or insects or drought destroys the tomato crop, should farming operations who own packers be required to allot a portion of their tomatoes not to their packers, but the competition?
Is Apple obligated to supply Best Buy with phones, or can they simply use only Apple stores? Is McDonalds obligated to sell Whoppers?
All of these restrict consumer choice.
Its a question, not an assertion. Is vertical integration in product different than vertical integration in providing channeled purchasing power? Does the Medicaid aspect change the equation?
Yes on the Whoppers. Their 1/4 pounders kind of suck.
Steve
From the Dutch West India Company to the Virginia Company to Google, Apple, and Amazon, the problem is that although they are treated as people under the law, they are not.
They serve the profit of investors. And although investors may claim morality, they have the cover of corporate officials, who claim fiduciary responsibility and have throughout history, performed the worst imaginable atrocities in the name of that same responsibility.
Capitalism needs to answer to this. It’s not enough to point to Socialism’s failures and carry on with it’s own.