One significant recent innovation is the
introduction of health clinics into pharmacies. The article plausibly says that this is both convenient and cheap, especially for people who are poor or who don't have health insurance. Of course it represents competition for doctors (the clinics are staffed by nurse practitioners). Do I have to tell you what
the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians had to say about the clinics?
[he] said the clinics have risen out of a broken health care system.
"The clinics are one response. They are not an answer."
and the AMA?
[they] passed a resolution in June asking state and federal authorities to investigate whether there was a conflict of interest in drug-store chains that both write and fill prescriptions.
The desire for monopoly springs eternal...