I Went Down to the Chelsea Drugstore

[chomiji]

Apparently a couple of bozos at Fox think that Walgreens provides Pap smears and breast exams. Stephen Colbert tells it like it is:

(Thanks to fiction_theory for pointing this out.)

(And why doesn't LJ have a snarky moodicon, or a catty one?)

Comments

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Well, to be as fair as possible, in a lot of places Walgreens has a clinic in the back. They do urgent-care type stuff--vaccinations, strep swabs, etc. All minor and non-chronic. They'll do camp physicals, and some screenings. I've used them myself fairly frequently, for strep swabs and flu shots and such.

You can't, however, get cancer screenings there, or pap smears. And I have no idea what provisions they have for low income patients. Cutting Planned Parenthood because "you can get that at Walgreens" is indefensible. But you knew that.

[chomiji]

Sure, I mean, I've seen people get flu shots at CVS, too. But to say that to an audience that would be inclined to take them at their word, without checking it out, is in my opinion also indefensible. It's crap news commentary, as well as being rotten to other human beings.

Yeah, it's shooting fish in a barrel to point that out ... but Colbert is priceless on that clip. He's having such a hard time keeping a straight face.

[lawless523.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment that it's so ludicrous that Colbert has a hard time keeping a straight face, but you've already pointed that out.

Also, I don't think Walgreens is national, either. There aren't any that I remember in the upstate New York region from which I hail. It's not exactly hicksville, either, considering it's where the state capital is located -- hence the name the Capital Region.

[chomiji]

Colbert is priceless there - I just showed the Mr., and he was cracking up too.

They really, really do think that there's nothing the free market can't solve ... .

[lawless523.livejournal.com]

You'd think people would learn from such things as the Madoff debacle, the savings and loan meltdown, and the collapse of the housing market that there's such a thing as greed and that capitalism requires regulation lest the economy dissolve into self-dealing and overreaching. It's as if such people don't understand psychology.

That said, I'm more of an advocate of capitalism and free markets than most people on LJ, I suspect. But I had the advantage of (a) actually studying Marxism, anarchism, and socialism as political philosophies and systems -- I wrote an honors thesis on Marx, Proudhon, and Bakunin -- and (b) taking courses in law school with a heavy dose of economic theory, including a microeconomics course. I took macroeconomics in college. It sounded more interesting than micro, but it's far less useful for the average person.

[warriorofworry.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've used those clinics too - Walgreens doesn't have them here but CVS does - because I don't have health insurance or a doctor. They have *no* provision for low income - it's $96.00 for a visit here, without labs.
And I didn't see any provision for "specialty" medicine like gynecology or pathology. (Or, put another way, they didn't try to sell me any of those services, and heavens knows they tried to sell me a lot of medical services.)

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I checked Walgreens' website to be sure--they do a lot of minor-ish stuff, but no gynecology. Though the prices here appear to be more reasonable--I've usually paid fifty or sixty for a "gosh you have strep here's a script for antibiotics" kind of thing. And I haven't had them try to sell me anything extra. I've actually been pretty pleased with them, overall.

It's meant to be a stopgap, a "this isn't bad enough for the ER and we can handle it quicker than your regular dr could." It's not someplace that offers access to healthcare for everyone even if they can't pay.

I'm speechless at the kinds of things people are saying, straight-faced, about access to health care, honestly. And the clip was funny--it's just, part of the funny was meant to be the absurdity of getting pap smears at the drug store, when these days my image of the drugstore includes a nurse practitioner and an examining room, was all.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly. It's worse than crap news commentary, as you say, it's morally indefensible. I'm not really sure how the folks who go on the air and let lies like that fall out of their mouths at that rate manage to live with themselves, honestly.

And the colonoscopy joke was hilarious, as was his not being able to keep a straight face. It was only, I kept going "but wait, there's a clinic at Walgreens, and a nurse practitioner" so the "ha ha medical care at Walgreens" bit just felt a bit off.

[warriorofworry.livejournal.com]

The clip *was* funny, but the assumptions that people (usually privileged with health insurance) make about access to health care just floor me.
I've been repeatedly turned down for health insurance because my dad's diabetic and had his first heart attack in his late 40's; my mother is a cancer survivor, and I have a rare (but essentially harmless) blood condition. I find it fascinating, though, that people have begun to treat not having health insurance as a moral failing, similar to the way being poor is treated. And in the meantime insurance companies make obscene profits.