4 ms·

This is a good thing, regardless of whatever else Amazon is doing. Large organizations do not monolithically fit one description or judgment. Amazon does lots

This is a good thing, regardless of whatever else Amazon is doing. Large organizations do not monolithically fit one description or judgment. Amazon does lots of other questionable or downright malicious things. This is not one of those.

nerdjon 3y ago
Honestly this has been one of my thoughts with Amazon getting into prescriptions in the first place. A lot can be said about Amazon and thats valid, but they do put a lot of focus on their customers. We can argue that them doing this likely means that they will get more business and that will also prop up the rest of their prescription offerings, but that goal ultimately has a benefit to people that need this medication. If they can apply this to copay cards and anything else that saves people who need these medications (by that I mean just all medications across the board) money but Amazon still gets their money, it would be huge. The system sucks right now.
elzbardico 3y ago
Yes. The real world is generally far more complicated than our deeply polarized society increasingly think it is.
delfinom 3y ago
The problem is, if you read the stories, Amazon is turning pharmaceutical work into basically another warehouse job of high quotas and speed. To the point that pharmacies just ignore Amazon's requests to transfer meds because Amazon would use autodialers to call pharmacies, and then put the called on pharmacy on hold until the single pharmacist on call at Amazon picks up that call after dealing with dozens of others at the same time. Meanwhile wasting the time of the other pharmacies. This is just Amazon trying to grow their pharmacy business at all costs. What they are doing in this specific example is a good thing, but who knows what the fallout will be.
- vwcx 3y ago
  > who knows what the fallout will be Excellent point. It's easy (in the US, at least) to take the widespread availability of pharmacies in grocery stores, street corners, etc for granted. It's not difficult to see Amazon squeezing the industry enough to make a pharmacy in a grocery store unsustainable.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    YMMV. But I live in the Seattle area and it seems like the major chains (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid) are all doing the same and their pharmacists are quitting in droves. Rite Aid just bought a beloved local chain and now everyone I know has switched because it’s been run into the ground.
- Zpalmtree 3y ago
  More competition is rarely a bad thing
  - scubbo 3y ago
    Rarely, indeed! But when a competitor is a behemoth who is able to eat losses until they drive competitors out of business (and has a track record of doing so) so that competition (and customer experience quality) declines in the long run, that's the rare-but-true case of "a new competitor entering the market is bad, actually".
    - milesvp 3y ago
      Yeah, seriously. More competition, and monopsony do not dwell in the same space. We’ve been very lax in our reigning in of big companies that destroy competition while claiming they’re competitive. It’s like bringing a gun to a track meet and saying you won the race while one racer lies bleeding on the ground and every other racer has suspiciously slow times.
88913527 3y ago
Anything that goes in my body I am hesitant to buy from Amazon. Hopeful cautiousness is my take.
- justin_oaks 3y ago
  You say that as if Amazon would be the manufacturer of these drugs. There's a difference between a pharmacy and a drug manufacturer. In this case Amazon is just the pharmacy.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - scubbo 3y ago
    There is an extremely common claim (disclaimer: I haven't noticed experiencing it myself) that Amazon Retail often ships fake products when the real ones are purchased. The concern isn't that Amazon _itself_ is manufacturing poor-quality goods(/drugs) - it's that Amazon's quality control for their suppliers is poor.
zer8k 3y ago
I used to think medicine shipped to my door was great too. That is, until I lost my job. My benefits were cut off immediately (the company did a layoff at the end of the month on purpose) and I could no longer access my medication. Despite having a script with the company and plenty of refills from my doctor they outright refused even if I paid cash. I ended up going 2 weeks without medication and having to get an ER doctor to write me a new script. my primary wanted an entirely new visit to rewrite an existing script because they didn't believe my story. Between this and being treated like a junkie when I need a hold-over dose of a non-addictive non-narcotic medication makes me hate the cards I was dealt. Pharmacists are complicit in this even though they frame themselves as victims of the system as well. Those kickbacks from drug companies and doctors are just too damn good. Anyone who actually deals with the medical system knows these services are not a universal good. I always advise people to stick with GoodRx and a local (physical) location for medication so you don't get you medication promptly cut off when (not if) you lose benefits.
- greggyb 3y ago
  Your experience sounds terrible, and I am sorry you had to go through that. To be clear, the thing that I am saying is good is the topic of the article at hand, Amazon automatically applying discounts for insulin. This is orthogonal to their delivery methods.

nerdjon 3y ago

Honestly this has been one of my thoughts with Amazon getting into prescriptions in the first place. A lot can be said about Amazon and thats valid, but they do put a lot of focus on their customers. We can argue that them doing this likely means that they will get more business and that will also prop up the rest of their prescription offerings, but that goal ultimately has a benefit to people that need this medication. If they can apply this to copay cards and anything else that saves people who need these medications (by that I mean just all medications across the board) money but Amazon still gets their money, it would be huge. The system sucks right now.

elzbardico 3y ago

Yes. The real world is generally far more complicated than our deeply polarized society increasingly think it is.

delfinom 3y ago

The problem is, if you read the stories, Amazon is turning pharmaceutical work into basically another warehouse job of high quotas and speed. To the point that pharmacies just ignore Amazon's requests to transfer meds because Amazon would use autodialers to call pharmacies, and then put the called on pharmacy on hold until the single pharmacist on call at Amazon picks up that call after dealing with dozens of others at the same time. Meanwhile wasting the time of the other pharmacies. This is just Amazon trying to grow their pharmacy business at all costs. What they are doing in this specific example is a good thing, but who knows what the fallout will be.

vwcx 3y ago
> who knows what the fallout will be Excellent point. It's easy (in the US, at least) to take the widespread availability of pharmacies in grocery stores, street corners, etc for granted. It's not difficult to see Amazon squeezing the industry enough to make a pharmacy in a grocery store unsustainable.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  YMMV. But I live in the Seattle area and it seems like the major chains (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid) are all doing the same and their pharmacists are quitting in droves. Rite Aid just bought a beloved local chain and now everyone I know has switched because it’s been run into the ground.
Zpalmtree 3y ago
More competition is rarely a bad thing
- scubbo 3y ago
  Rarely, indeed! But when a competitor is a behemoth who is able to eat losses until they drive competitors out of business (and has a track record of doing so) so that competition (and customer experience quality) declines in the long run, that's the rare-but-true case of "a new competitor entering the market is bad, actually".
  - milesvp 3y ago
    Yeah, seriously. More competition, and monopsony do not dwell in the same space. We’ve been very lax in our reigning in of big companies that destroy competition while claiming they’re competitive. It’s like bringing a gun to a track meet and saying you won the race while one racer lies bleeding on the ground and every other racer has suspiciously slow times.

88913527 3y ago

Anything that goes in my body I am hesitant to buy from Amazon. Hopeful cautiousness is my take.

justin_oaks 3y ago
You say that as if Amazon would be the manufacturer of these drugs. There's a difference between a pharmacy and a drug manufacturer. In this case Amazon is just the pharmacy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- scubbo 3y ago
  There is an extremely common claim (disclaimer: I haven't noticed experiencing it myself) that Amazon Retail often ships fake products when the real ones are purchased. The concern isn't that Amazon _itself_ is manufacturing poor-quality goods(/drugs) - it's that Amazon's quality control for their suppliers is poor.

zer8k 3y ago

I used to think medicine shipped to my door was great too. That is, until I lost my job. My benefits were cut off immediately (the company did a layoff at the end of the month on purpose) and I could no longer access my medication. Despite having a script with the company and plenty of refills from my doctor they outright refused even if I paid cash. I ended up going 2 weeks without medication and having to get an ER doctor to write me a new script. my primary wanted an entirely new visit to rewrite an existing script because they didn't believe my story. Between this and being treated like a junkie when I need a hold-over dose of a non-addictive non-narcotic medication makes me hate the cards I was dealt. Pharmacists are complicit in this even though they frame themselves as victims of the system as well. Those kickbacks from drug companies and doctors are just too damn good. Anyone who actually deals with the medical system knows these services are not a universal good. I always advise people to stick with GoodRx and a local (physical) location for medication so you don't get you medication promptly cut off when (not if) you lose benefits.

greggyb 3y ago
Your experience sounds terrible, and I am sorry you had to go through that. To be clear, the thing that I am saying is good is the topic of the article at hand, Amazon automatically applying discounts for insulin. This is orthogonal to their delivery methods.