Bacon cupcakes are the only thing that'll cheer me up about this news.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I thought I’d take a moment and do one of those off-the-top-of-my-head lists of things.  Today it’s

The List Of All The Things I Like About Our “Health Care” “System.”

So there’s…

Um…

Maybe…

Okay, I’ve got it: Bacon Cupcakes.  Don’t tell me that’s not part of the health care system.  It probably is, given how screwed up health care is in this country.

And the latest screwing-up of a necessary component of any advanced civilization (i.e., “health care”)? The insane demand for profits by a middleman company that is at the heart of the Walgreens and Express Script dispute.

Express Scripts is this company that does nothing and creates nothing and provides no meaningful services.  It is a Profit Troll, a company that exists because it can, not because it should.  What it does, to the extent it does anything but drain our society of resources, is act as the middleman between drugstores and health insurance companies.

And what Express Scripts, Profit Troll, does recently is demand ever greater concessions from companies like Walgreen’s; the latest round of contract negotiations between the two saw Express Scripts (Whose profits grow at 2x the rate of other industry companies) demanding that Walgreens take huge losses and give unilateral control over things like naming what’s a generic drug to Express Scripts.

And in the end, Walgreen’s couldn’t do that, so Express Scripts (as so many “health care” companies/Profit Trolls do) put profits ahead of health and has no deal with Walgreen’s.

The upshot is Walgreen’s customers who are Express Scripts members may now have to go farther away to get prescriptions at other drug stores: all Walgreen’s and some Duane Reeds are affected. And they’ll probably pay higher prices.

One particular group will almost certainly pay higher prices: Military families. Express Scripts contracts with Tricare, which provides insurance to military families. Walgreen’s offered to guarantee the lowest prices in the country to Tricare, and Express Scripts said no, because Express Scripts likes profits more than it likes than our military.

So with all that going on, two questions remain:

Can you prove that bacon cupcakes aren’t part of the health care system?

And what can you do?

The answer to the second question is: join Walgreens Prescription Savings Club

http://www.walgreens.com/pharmacy/psc/psc_overview_page.jsp

For January, you can do that at a discount: $10 per family in ($5 for one person), and you get discounts on 8,000 different brand-name medications, low prices on generics, Walgreen’s discounts on flu shots, pet scripts, nebulizers and other things. Members also get bonuses for using other Walgreen’s services, like photofinishing, so you can continue to save on medications and still do one-stop shopping at your local pharmacy.

And you can show your support for the companies that are trying to do the right thing: Pick sides, like me:  Stick up for Walgreen’s: Like Walgreens on Facebook and follow Walgreens on Twitter (@Walgreens), and help make things better.