The Troll That Tried To Kill You: A Parable, Or Something.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Once upon a time, there lived a mean ol’ troll, whose sole purpose in life was to take something of value from everyone it came into contact with and never give anything back.  This troll, who was as ugly as you might imagine a troll to be, constantly wanted more more more, even though he already was getting richer and fatter and uglier and meaner at double the rate of other trolls.

One day, the mean ol’ troll decided to up his game, as it were, and thought “I could get even richer if I made sure that the people who I demand money from had to give it to me in order to stay alive,” and so the troll went into health care middleman business, and changed his name from “mean ol’ troll” to Express Scripts.

That’s probably not the EXACT way that Express Scripts came into existence, but it’s close enough.  Express Scripts, as you probably don’t know, is a middleman health company that contracts with health insurers and drug stores, and in so doing, adds zero to the health care industry while sucking away profits from it – profits being money you must pay.

Express Scripts gets payments from health insurers and gives them to drugstores. That’s all it does.  That’s why it exists: To be a conduit for money that would be paid anyway.  And it’s an amazingly profitable business, apparently, given that Express Scripts (former troll, now health care do-nothing) sees its profits rise about double the rate of other industry companies.

It does that, apparently, by strong-arming local drugstores into losing money just to get you prescription drugs, as shown by the Walgreens and Express Scripts dispute.

Walgreen’s, which has been contracting with Express Scripts, offered to help keep costs down by keeping its rates flat and charging guaranteed lowest prices to military families who get their insurance through Tricare.

Express Scripts, in turn, said “Screw you, sick people, military families, and Walgreen’s, we want more,” and demanded more control and below-industry prices.   And so Express Scripts no longer has a deal with Walgreen’s, which means that military families will pay more for their medications, and you will pay more or go to a different, farther away pharmacy.

All because Express Scripts, Profit Troll, wanted more money than it already had at your expense.

You could join Walgreen’s Prescription Savings Club at Walgreens:

http://www.walgreens.com/pharmacy/psc/psc_overview_page.jsp

For January, you can do that at a discounted price of just $10 per family in ($5 for one person), getting the option of discounts on 8,000 different brand-name medications, low prices on generics, Walgreen’s discounts on flu shots, pet scripts, nebulizers and other things. Members also get bonuses for using other Walgreen’s services, like photofinishing, so you can continue to save on medications and still do one-stop shopping at your local pharmacy.

And you can show your support for the companies that are trying to do the right thing: Pick sides, like me:  Stick up for Walgreen’s: Like Walgreens on Facebook and follow Walgreens on Twitter (@Walgreens), and help make things better.