More pharmacy options is fine by me. The Mark Cuban branded pharmacy that everyone was excited about can be a good option if you have no insurance and you’re careful to check the grand total (inclusive of shipping fees) against your local pharmacy.
The few times I checked, it was net cheaper for me to go to the local pharmacy though. Many generic drugs are $2-5 these days and ordering through an online pharmacy with shipping fees is both slower and more expensive.
If Amazon could integrate cheap generics into their shipping infrastructure it would solve the shipping problem. If they made the effort to work with insurance they’d be a great option.
I’m perfectly fine with a race to the bottom for medication dispensing middlemen.
I have no doubts that you end sentence is likely scenario.
BigTech can operate their products at a loss to kill competition, capture market, lobby gatekeeping legislation, and then raise prices to meet shareholder expectations.
Sometimes I wonder how progress would have looked like if we by some means had a hard cap how big companies can get.
- One Medical, for primary care
- Amazon Pharmacy, for prescription medication
- This first responder experiment could potentially be commercialized somehow
I think I’m fine with it so long as they don’t verify that you’re a Prime subscriber before treatment a la Cyberpunk.