$4 drugs come to California - Target, Wal-Mart slash prices; pharmacy association critical
Wal-Mart Stores began selling $4 prescription drugs
Tuesday at its 189 pharmacies in California, including
its stores in the Northern San Joaquin Valley and
Sierra foothills.
California and 10 other states were among the final
states included in the retailer's discount program,
first offered at Wal-Mart pharmacies in Florida in
September. Four dollars buys a 30-day supply of generic
drugs on Wal-Mart's discount list, which now has 331
prescription drugs.
Last week, in response to Wal-Mart, Target Corp.
started offering $4 prescriptions at its pharmacies
in California and 46 other states.
Billie Ann McClintick of Modesto said she went to
the Wal-Mart on Plaza Parkway on Tuesday after a chain
drugstore quoted a $20 price for a medication used
by her 91-year-old aunt. She got it for $4 at the
Wal-Mart pharmacy.
She said she thinks Wal-Mart's price-slashing will
drive down the costs of drugs.
"I think it is good for competition," she
said. "I would think that the other stores would
want to stay competitive."
Store officials said the Modesto Wal-Mart received
numerous inquiries Tuesday from customers seeking
information about the $4 prescriptions.
Wal-Mart pharmacist Jeff Doerman said a woman called
the pharmacy to ask if her cholesterol medication,
which costs $159, was on the list of $4 prescriptions.
It wasn't, but Doerman suggested she ask her doctor
if Pravastatin, a drug that is on the list, would
be as effective in controlling her cholesterol.
According to a price sheet, the brand-name version
of Pravastatin retails for $109.
Drug prices all over the board
Escalon farmer Vern Paddack brought a list of his
medicines to the pharmacy's window after getting a
lesson in the verities of drug pricing. He said one
chain store quoted a price of $60 for a drug called
Terazosin; it's $12 at Costco.
"I am going to find out if they have it for
$4," said Paddack, who has no insurance and pays
$200 a month for drugs. Wal-Mart and Target offer
Terazosin for $4.
The $4 prescriptions at Wal-Mart and Target represent
a small percentage of the generic drugs that a drugstore
normally has in stock.
Wal-Mart's list consists of about 140 drugs in different
formulations. About 50 of the 331 prescriptions can't
be sold for $4 in California because of a law prohibiting
retailers from selling products below cost.
Wal-Mart pharmacies are selling many of those prescriptions
for $4-plus to $9, Doerman said.
Some customers taking advantage of the discounts
were insured individuals who have their prescriptions
filled at Wal-Mart pharmacies, store officials said.
In processing those prescriptions, pharmacy computers
default either to the patient's copayment or the discount
price, whatever is lower, store officials said.
Critics of the Wal-Mart program say the retailer
is selling the drugs at a loss to lure customers into
its stores and help with its public image.
"They are hoping to make up their losses when
the customers buy more shampoo and suntan lotion,"
said Michael Negrete, chief executive officer of the
Pharmacy Foundation, a nonprofit group tied to the
California Pharmacists Association.
He expressed concern that the discount programs reinforce
a notion that prescription drugs are a commodity.
That can create an environment where medication errors
can become more prevalent, he contended.
He said the drug's price should be weighed against
the oversight and attention customers receive from
pharmacists at traditional drugstores.
"With prescription drugs there is more to think
about than cost and convenience," Negrete said.
"If you focus your attention on the cost of the
prescription, it becomes less apparent that these
are powerful substances that should not be taken lightly."
