As much as I dislike Wal-Mart, they are one of the few organs that have the money to do this, but it is essentially the same as socialized medicine, except the medical people are employees of a corporation instead of the government.

That’s a very welcomed development for me, but a clinic – not so sure about that. They will miss too much, as will their customers.

* Yes, I know I can get the same deal elsewhere, but Wal Mart is closer by far. Sigh….

You can’t get a doctor these days without a referral, so where in hell do you get in line for the initial referral?

Yeah, SC, but there will always be some clown hit by a truck who will get in line in front of you, and who will want to write a check after his arm is in the cast.

damn straight we are. but yeah, if i ever again manage to get insurance and the insurance company requires, or even suggests, that i go to wal-mart for my doctoring, i’m going to be pissed.

otoh, the wal-mart of old, sam walton’s wal-mart, would probably have dome a pretty good job of running reasonably-priced doc-in-the-boxes.

Do note that these kinds of outfits rarely accept health insurance. They’ve figured out that, by the time they add up the staff needed to bill for insurance, and fight the insurance companies, they don’t have any profit left, so they just bill people cash money at the door prior to service, then slap a bandaid on the ouchie, pop a prescrip in your hand, and tell ya to come back in a couple weeks if you aren’t feeling better. Oh, they never handle anything that requires special equipment or anything either, no x-rays for broken bones, none of that, they tell you to go to the emergency room if it’s anything that a bandaid and a prescription can’t solve. And this is all the health care that most uninsured have, and they’re happy to have it because at least they get *some* access to health care out of it…

My thought: The biggest user of Wal-Mart’s clinics will be, well, Wal-Mart employees. It’s all they can afford, after all :-(.

– Badtux the Health Care Penguin