ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
“Where have all the drug stores gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the drug stores gone?
Long time ago…” — With apologies to Pete Seeger
The communities of Hopkins, Martin and Dorr at one time not so long ago had local drug stores. They don’t any more.
And perhaps Wayland Village Drugs, located inside Harding’s Market, is not long for this world as well.
This is all part of slow saga of the decline and fall of local businesses, swallowed up by bigger, stronger and richer competitors. Some call it the “Wal-Mart Effect.”
The bigger, stronger and faster companies are getting a boost from health insurance giants, once again fueling my interest in the Medicare for All idea in the only developed country on the planet with only private health insurance.
Pay attention. Connect the dots. Follow the money.
My private health insurer only this week sent a letter informing me and my wife that it’s going to cost us more to continue to do business with Wayland Village Drugs. We decided a long time ago to pick up our prescription medications at the Wayland pharmacy because we are strong believers in doing business locally. But someone with a lit more clout than us believes differently.
My wife then did a comparison of prices for all of the drugs we get and it was determined that starting this year the difference between Village Drugs and an Internet provider, based far away, was significant, so our drive to buy local was being severely tested.
Did someone once said the Golden Rule actually is “he who has the gold makes the rules?” It certainly feels like that.
And now I wonder what the reason was for pharmacies in Hopkins, Martin and Dorr went down in similar fashion. Losing to lower prices, backed by health insurance companies rigging the game that we’ve been told is a free market.
Then I remembered the comment from J.L. Smith when his more than a century old family-run local Smith Lumber & Coal Co. went belly up. He told me, “I’ve got three reasons for you — Menards, Lowe’s and Home Depot.”
There have been many stories about communities welcoming a Wal-Mart that eventually shuts down all competing businesses by selling for less. It’s nothing new, It’s a fact of life in the post-Reagan era.
Sorry to sound like a broken record: “But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.” — The late, great comedian George Carlin.
It’s a common tale, but true.
Oh yeah? What are we going to do about it? Nothing.
