INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

NEW YORK The fact that today’s consumers are not willing to give up their dietary nutrition as a knee-jerk cost-savings measure certainly is positive for a number of reasons.

NEW YORK A white donkey painted in black stripes does not a zebra make. In fact, all you really have is a donkey and a whole lot of paint. Something similar could be said here, because a 92% reduction in PSE sales does not correlate with a 92% reduction in the number of meth addicts cruising the streets.

The fact is a 92% reduction in PSE sales doesn’t add up to much of anything positive.

NEW YORK For two decades or more, independent pharmacy owners have been slammed by managed care, steady prescription reimbursement cuts, chain competition and regulatory hurdles. But in the Darwinian struggle of an unforgiving pharmacy market, the strongest are holding firm.

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 There is a big danger here, and it’s a danger that has less to do with the neighborhood meth addict in search of pseudoephedrine, and more to do with appropriate access to medicines and who gets to be the gatekeeper to that access. Because not only will a prescription-only PSE restrict consumer access to a legitimate nonprescription cough-cold ingredient, but if successfully mandated by the local government, it also has the potential to limit legitimate access to just about any cost-saving OTC medicine and for just about any reason.

NEW YORK Nonadherence to prescription medications is a big problem — a $200 billion-a-year problem for the already strained U.S. healthcare system.

That’s why CVS Caremark’s decision to embark a multiyear study, in partnership with researchers from Harvard and Brigham and Young Women’s Hospital, to find ways to alleviate this burden is important.

NEW YORK It’s like “Whack-a-Mole,” that game-arcade exercise in quick reflexes and frustration.