CHICAGO — In December 2017, CVS Health acquired insurance company Aetna. Its website promised a better experience, reduced costs, improved access, and unmatched local presence.
In Illinois, the purchase included Aetna’s Medicaid HMO. Democrats and Republicans, over opposition from the legislative Black Caucus, had previously forced most Medicaid enrollees into managed-care insurance plans.
In January 2021, CVS dropped Walgreens from its Medicaid HMO pharmacy network, requiring enrollees to get their prescriptions filled only at CVS. CVS stores are especially sparse in black, brown, and less affluent neighborhoods.
From 2021, continuing in 2022, and projected into 2024, CVS began closing its stores nationwide in underserved neighborhoods, while also opening stores in already over-supplied areas.
In May 2021, CVS announced the closing within three weeks of its store in the La Villita community of Chicago. The community fought back, demanding Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to use his pandemic emergency powers to keep this, and all pharmacies, open. The reasons: in the absence of a strong public health system, pharmacies are the most convenient source of COVID testing, immunizations and medications; many people in the community lack cars; public transportation is inadequate; and the closest CVS store will now be two miles away. Furthermore, the community has a high incidence of diabetes and of COVID cases and deaths. The fight was unsuccessful; the store closed.
Bureaucratic, financial, and logistical barriers to care are characteristic of the U.S. healthcare system, hence the struggle for single-payer national health care system. A single-payer system is necessary, but not sufficient.
CVS receives taxpayer money to serve its Medicaid HMO patients yet has decreased its access to essential services. In addition, it donated $5 million to the anti-single-payer Partnership for America’s Health Care Future; bought out independent pharmacies; used taxpayer funding of COVID vaccines and tests to boost its profits to $1 billion in a single quarter. This is what investor-owned, for-profit corporations do: they subordinate all human needs to their quest for maximum profits. We must get investor-owned, for-profit corporations out of health care.
We must build a public healthcare system in which every community benefits from robust public health services; and where everyone has access to all necessary care, including primary, mental health and dental care; pharmacy services; midwifery; and the supports that people of all ages with disabilities need to live with dignity in the community.
People over profits! Si se puede!
