Skip to content

Issue 11-07-2011

Walgreens plays host to the first lady

First lady Michelle Obama toured a Walgreen Co. store on Chicago’s South Side to get an up-close look at the drug chain’s efforts to provide better food options and accessible health care to underserved communities and to fight the childhood obesity epidemic.

PDP launched by Rite Aid, EnvisionRx Plus

Rite Aid Corp. is co-branding a value-focused Medicare Part D prescription drug plan (PDP) with EnvisionRx Plus. The Rite Aid EnvisionRx Plus plan offers beneficiaries no deductible and zero co-pays on more than 500 generic medications — even during the coverage gap, or so-called donut hole.

IOM: Costs can’t be ignored in health reform

The federal government should consider cost in deciding which health benefits must be provided by insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) says.

Less access to diabetes testing supplies a danger

The “super committee” seeking ways to cut the federal deficit should maintain Medicare recipients’ access to diabetes testing supplies at retail pharmacies, says National Association of Chain Drug Stores president and chief executive officer Steve Anderson.

Walgreens makes more stunning changes

Change never comes easily, especially for a company blessed with success. Why change, the thinking goes, when what we’re doing apparently works so well? That’s been Walgreens’ dilemma. Very few retailers, and no drug chains, have enjoyed the success Walgreens has found over the past 30 years.

Healthier Rite Aid is boost for industry

It’s time for people in the chain drug industry to take another look at Rite Aid, whose long, painful turnaround has started to gain traction in recent months. For more than a decade the company has been widely viewed as something of an invalid, a status that resulted from self-inflicted wounds.