Content about Health care in the United States

So many of the chronic conditions that continue to challenge the U.S. healthcare system tie back to rising obesity rates and the simple fact that here, in the land of plenty, Americans eat too much — particularly, too much of the wrong stuff. With that, today's supermarket pharmacies, ideally positioned to help fill the gap between the physician's office and everyday life, are emerging with unique solutions, leveraging the food-pharmacy connection to help Americans reduce costs and improve health outcomes.

NEW YORK The expansion of MinuteClinic's partnership with Humana not only further illustrates the important role that retail-based clinics play in the U.S. healthcare system and the model's growing acceptance among third-party payers, but it also underscores the significance of worksite clinics.

As the healthcare reform debate continues and discussions of public vs. private are tossed about, what seems to be getting lost in all of the muck are the cost-controlling levers that already exist, like those reforms CVS Caremark's Tom Ryan outlined.

For example, getting patients to take their medications as prescribed could have a major impact on driving down costs -- to the tune of billions of dollars a year -- while improving healthcare outcomes of patients.

NEW YORK The complications that can result from unhealthy eating among middle-aged and elderly Americans with Type 2 diabetes have consequences for the whole healthcare system, but it’s not just diabetes, which already costs the U.S. healthcare system $116 billion. Unhealthy eating habits contribute to and exacerbate obesity, hypertension and kidney disease, diseases that often have causal relationships to one another. Obesity and diabetes already cost the healthcare system $147 billion and $116 billion, respectively.

NEW YORK The fact that Take Care Health Systems has expanded its service offering to include nebulizer treatments is important for several reasons, one of which is that it will further help alleviate some of the pressure at overflowing emergency rooms.

The move also helps Take Care Health prepare to deal with chronic disease management for asthma in all of its clinics.

NEW YORK The findings of the Take Care Health Systems’ survey are important as they undoubtedly underscore the importance of worksite clinics, which are growing increasingly common as U.S. employers look for ways to curb skyrocketing healthcare costs and bolster employee health and productivity.

NEW YORK Did RxIMPACT Day make an impact? You bet.

If there were any members of Congress that hadn’t noticed the more than 150 members of the community pharmacy community making their way around the Capitol — many of them clad in the white lab coats symbolic of the profession — on Weds., certainly there couldn’t have been a member on the Hill that hadn’t felt their presence by the time the day was done.

The announcement by Take Care Health Systems that it is offering free health services at its clinics throughout the rest of the year for those who lose their jobs couldn't have come at a more critical time.

In fact, the numbers just came in, and it doesn’t look good. The nation’s unemployment rate rose to 8.5% in March, the highest since late 1983. And, as we all know, the loss of a job too often means the loss of health benefits.

Dear Mr. President,

In my first letter to you (see Drug Store News, Dec. 9, 2008, “Dear Mr. President-Elect,” page 12), I implored you to make fixing the U.S. healthcare system the enduring legacy of your presidency.