Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens have signaled plans to shutter more than 1,500 stores in the past two years, and public health experts say there’s already been fallout.
By Aaron Gregg and Jaclyn Peiser, The Washington PostA Rite Aid sign is displayed on the facade of a store in Pittsburgh in January. The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.
Pharmacies can be lifelines in rural or low-income areas, particularly in food deserts - areas that have limited access to healthy and affordable food. Pharmacists are often the most accessible health care professional for these communities, said Lorece Edwards, a professor of public health at Morgan State University who focuses on health disparities.
And moving more merchandise behind plexiglass barriers to discourage theft and violence has lent a dystopian feel to some locations. Front-of-store sales at Rite Aid fell 4.4 percent in the latest quarter. CVS saw a nearly 2 percent sales decline. The pharmacy giants have sought to shore up their positions through consolidation and by syncing up with insurance companies in ways that steer patients back to them. Aetna patients can go to any pharmacy, but they’ll get a better deal at CVS, which acquired the insurer in 2018. Blue Cross Blue Shield clients have a similar setup with Walgreens. Rite Aid, has no such relationship with an insurer.
“For us, it’s a trade-off of living in a remote area of Alaska,” La Vigne, 45, said. “I think for the most part the community . . . would prefer to have a pharmacy here.” “This has been going on historically, and that pretty much just exacerbates preexisting health disparities,” she said. “It interrupts care and interrupts all the access to medical advice, access to vaccines, access to food, access to staples.”Racial minorities in the United States already are at a higher risk of diabetes and high blood pressure, for example. Children in low-income areas have higher rates of asthma and mental health issues, Edwards said.
Walgreens and CVS reached settlements of $10 billion with multiple states, and Kroger agreed to pay $1.2 billion. Rite Aid reached a $30 million opioid settlement in 2022 with the West Virginia attorney general’s office but faces numerous consolidated cases in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and with the Justice Department.
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